Global Neighborhoods: Jewish Quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin

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Jewish Quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin

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Global Neighborhoods


Global Neighborhoods Jewish Quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin

Michel S. Laguerre

STATE UNIVERSITY

OF

NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2008 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Kelli W. LeRoux Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Laguerre, Michel S. Global neighborhoods : Jewish quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin / Michel S. Laguerre. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7914-7551-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Jewish neighborhoods—Europe. 2. Jews, European. 3. Jews— England—London. 4. Jews—France—Paris. 5. Jews—Germany—Berlin. I. Title. DS135.E89L34 2008 305.892'404091732—dc22

2007047997 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of the Holocaust victims and for the Jewish people through whom we inherit the “Jesus of History” and the “Christ of Faith”


Contents List of Figures, Tables, and Maps Preface Acknowledgments

ix xi xix

Chapter 1

Neighborhood Globalization

Chapter 2

Paris’s Jewish Quarter: Unmade, Remade, and Transformed

19

Berlin’s Jewish Quarter: The Local History of the Global

37

London’s Jewish Neighborhoods: Nodes of Global Networks

61

Chapter 5

Residential Districts Versus Business Districts

83

Chapter 6

The Jewish Quarter as a Global Chronopolis

101

Chapter 7

Paris’s City Hall and the Jewish Quarter

117

Chapter 8

Heritage Tourism: The Jewish Quarter as a Theme Park

137

The Jewish Quarter, Other Diasporic Sites, and Israel

159

Information Technology and the Jewish Neighborhood

175

Neighborhoods of Globalization

195

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

1

viii Conclusion

Contents Global Neighborhoods in the Global Metropolis

217

Notes

229

References

247

Index

259

Figures, Tables, and Maps Figures 8.1. 8.2. 8.3. 8.4. 8.5. 8.6. 8.7.

Jewish Plaques in Paris The Old Synagogue Neue Synagoge German Jews Deported to the Concentration Camps A Holocaust Plaque The Old Jewish Cemetery Old People’s Home as Collection Point

144 146 147 147 148 148 148

Maps 11.1. 11.2. 11.3. 11.4.

Jewish Jewish Jewish Jewish

Quarter of Le Marais in Paris Neighborhood of Stamford Hill in London Neighborhood of Golders Green in London Quarter of Scheunenviertel in Berlin

199 204 205 209

Tables 11.1. 11.2. 11.3.

Jewish Paris Jewish London Jewish Berlin

200 203 208

ix


Preface We are not just defined by the three elements of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and defense of Israel. . . . It is obvious that 90 percent of our lives is not defined by these elements, but 90 percent of our image is. —Jonathan Joseph, President of the European Council of Jewish Communities

The study of global metropolitan landscapes has taken a new strategic turn in regard to the conceptualization of their geographical and social parameters because of the diasporic revolution that such urban sites are experiencing. Diasporic communities in the information and digital age have revolutionized the modus operandi of Western European and North American cities because of their incorporation in large numbers into the polity, their competition for city resources, their contributions to the urban economy, and their significance as visible cultural outposts of their respective homelands. Until recently, immigrant neighborhoods were understood as marginal offshoots of their respective homeland—or simply as ethnic enclaves—and perceived as providing cheap labor and services to the larger urban community as part of their contribution to and inscription in the racialized global metropolis. More and more, in recent years, these ethnic enclaves have been seen by urban analysts as smaller, but pivotal global cities that both feed and are fed by the larger global metropolis in the midst of which the diasporans have resettled. They contribute to the growth and diversity of the urban population and the complexity of its governance structure, and, in their everyday lives, they also use the services provided by the municipal government. In what follows, analyses of the global cities of Paris, London, and Berlin will show how each is made up of smaller global cities constituted by xi

xii

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immigrant neighborhoods as the places of their territorial concentration, political integration, and geographical visibility. The conceptual apparatus deployed in this study of immigrant neighborhoods in the globalized metropolis is the result of an effort to develop an interface between two distinct literatures on the study of diasporas. The first has conceptualized diasporas as nomadic, a concept that implies movement, dispersion, and globalization. The second, chiefly employed with regard to urbanism, has conceptualized diasporas as sedentary, a concept that implies geographic location, territorial boundaries, and spatial enclosure. Each approach, however, has adopted the characteristics of the other and, in the process, the conceptualization of diasporas themselves has been redeployed in a new way and has generated new parameters that cut across state boundaries. From the perspective of the receiving society, immigrant neighborhoods continue to be seen as sedentary ethnic enclaves—and it does not matter how long they have been established in their locations—and are expected by the majority community to assimilate so as to enjoy the benefit of upward mobility. But from the perspective of the immigrants, their neighborhoods appear to be global diasporic cities (“diaspolises”) that actively participate in the affairs of the hostland, the homeland, and the global interactive network of diasporic sites. In particular, this book is about the organization of everyday life and the social integration of contemporary Jewish neighborhoods in Paris, Berlin, and London. Jewish neighborhoods are among the most developed forms of transglobal diasporic urbanism because of the length of time the transnation has been living outside its ancestral homeland and the numerous institutions it has developed over the years to care for members of the group at home and abroad. The book concentrates on the post-Holocaust era in an effort to explain how each urban diasporic site has followed a different path of development influenced by the local milieu in which it is incorporated, as well as by its extraterritorial relations with Israel and other diasporic enclaves inside and outside the hostland. Each neighborhood is seen as a node in a transnational network of transglobal sites that contributes to the performance of its singular territorial identity and cultural traditions. In previous studies of ethnic enclaves, the focus was on the nation-state as the niche that shapes their contours because the interest was mostly in assimilation issues as a way of gauging the integration of immigrants into society. The recent shift of emphasis identifying ethnic enclaves as transnational communities, however, stresses hostlandhomeland relations as the proper framework of analysis. Reconceptu-

Preface

xiii

alizing ethnic enclaves as nodes within a transglobal network of sites shifts the emphasis in their study yet again, unveiling both their local and global orientations. This focus invokes their multisite attachments to explain their positioning in society and their border-crossing practices. The singularity of this newer approach embedded in globalization theory is a shift from an emphasis on the logic of the local site to the logic of the network of transglobal sites that feeds or reactivates each node of the network. This approach concerns itself not only with diaspora-homeland relations, but also with diaspora-hostland relations and the relationships of a diasporic site with other diasporic sites that constitute the network of transglobal sites. This book departs on two counts from the earlier emphasis on studying the ethnic community within the boundaries of the receiving nation-state or the city in which it is located in order to explain its level of integration or assimilation to society. It first relocates the parameters of the neighborhood inside both the hostland and the global network that links and sustains the relations of the local enclave to the homeland and other diasporic sites. The major consequence of this repositioning of the object of study is that it affords a grasp of a much larger universe, one in which the neighborhood now can be disclosed as just one node in a more complicated and dispersed network. Since the connected nodes of this network are capable of influencing each other, broadening the focus in this way allows us to account for the ways in which the content, equilibrium, and variable shape of the local is affected by and affects the global network. Second, this study also reproblematizes the very notion of ethnic enclave by showing the ways in which it is fed by and feeds the individuals and formal institutions of the diasporic group throughout the city, that is, those located in integrated neighborhoods or in the suburbs, as well as beyond the city itself, rather than those merely located within the geographical boundaries of the traditional ethnic enclave. This new shift from previous studies is important because it stresses the role of the formal institutions of larger groups in influencing and shaping local outcomes. In this sense, local neighborhoods choreograph their global performances with diverse components of the diasporic group dispersed across the metropolis and beyond. The transglobal urbanism of global neighborhoods is influenced by the variable geometry of the interaction they maintain with formal Jewish institutions that manage the affairs of the urban diasporic community at the city, national, and international levels. Each local place also contributes in its own way to the maintenance of this global circuit at a variety of levels, as well as receives inputs from those levels.

xiv

Preface

In this perspective, the enclave is seen as incorporated in the nation-state where it is located and in the global network of sites with which it maintains concrete and permanent relations, as well as in the daily practices and activities of the particular residential community. The logic of the local site as it is transformed into a transglobal site is shaped by and is in sync with the logic of the network. Therefore, while this book allows local actors to voice their opinions and interpretations of everyday life in their neighborhoods, it nevertheless dissects the interface of the global with the local in the production of the enclave as a transglobal site. It also unveils the dominant logic of the network constituted by a heterogeneity of sites, each with its own history and cultural orientation. Focusing on a set of neighborhoods helps us to understand not only the behavior of each specific node, but also sheds light on other nodes and the characteristics of the network itself. It tells us that what goes on in a node may be influenced by or the consequence of what goes on in another node or the rest of the network. Hence, the ethnic enclave can be seen as a small-scale global city with its own sets of characteristics because it is embedded in a global metropolitan system—including its relations with other richer or poorer sites occupied or inhabited by the group in the city—that influences its physical shape and contributes to its social reproduction. These neighborhoods are not simply transnational social formations, but are fundamentally transglobal entities because their interaction reaches beyond the homeland, because they are also connected to multiple overseas diasporic sites, and because they develop the logic of their social actions inside this larger network of relationships. Inside this expanded circuit, there is a constant movement of people, goods, communications, ideas, images, and capital that sustains the everyday life of the network and gives vibrancy to each node that constitutes its platform. This study explains the mechanisms of operation of this new form of transglobal urban system, the way it reproduces itself over time, its mode of expansion in space, and its multiple circulatory paths. In so doing, it addresses sets of questions pertaining to the reconstitution of Jewish neighborhoods after the Holocaust in terms of population composition, new status attained, the impact of the existence of the state of Israel on their growth, and individual or group anti-Semitism they must confront instead of the state-sponsored anti-Semitism of the pre–World War II era. The historic Jewish ghetto of Le Marais in Paris has reconstituted itself after the Holocaust, but mostly with a new group of Jewish im-

Preface

xv

migrants from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Ashkenazi old-timers from Central and Eastern Europe who occupied the neighborhood before World War II lost their demographic strength because of the Holocaust, migration to other sites in France, or emigration, primarily to the United States and Israel. The neighborhood constitutes a very small percentage of Jewish Paris, despite the visibility of a cluster of shops that still attract weekly patrons who are in search of kosher products and tourists who are in search of their roots. In Berlin, the historic Jewish ghetto of Scheunenviertel completely lost its Jewish population during the Holocaust because most residents were taken to concentration camps in various parts of Germany and Poland. Its buildings suffered from the ravages of wartime aerial bombing, and, after the war, to add insult to injury, its housing structures were seized by the Communist government and became state property until German reunification in 1990. Located in the former East Berlin–Mitte, Scheunenviertel has not been able to reconstitute itself as a viable residential Jewish neighborhood, even though communal institutions such as the Neue Synagoge/Centrum Judaicum, Adass Jisroel, the Leo Bäeck Haus, and other sites have been returned to the Jewish community. The buildings are there, but not the people, as journalist Ruth Ellen Gruber earlier found in the case of other Jewish quarters in Europe. For this reason, Scheunenviertel has yet to become a residential neighborhood of Jewish Berlin once again. In any case, it continues to attract Jewish tourists and others in search of its glorious past. The historic Jewish ghetto of Whitechapel in East London is no longer the heart and soul of Jewish London as well, but chiefly because, since the war, the population has been slowly migrating to other boroughs such as Hackney, a district in North London. It therefore was necessary to follow the population to its new settings, exemplified by Stamford Hill, where the ultra-Orthodox community constitutes a majority of Jewish residents, and the plush suburb of Golders Green, where liberal Jews congregate, according to the prevalent perception of nonmembers of the Jewish community. Both neighborhoods are visible as Jewish enclaves because of the Jewish population, synagogues, and stores in their midst. These Jewish neighborhoods are vibrant post-Holocaust communities that have contributed to the well-being of other diasporic sites and to the redefinition of their relations with Israel. The very existence of Israel as an independent state implies a redefinition of Jewish diasporic identity because it marks the passage from an uprooted and rerooted diaspora to a diaspora with a reconstituted homeland.

xvi

Preface

These European Jewish quarters are thus global neighborhoods, since they are simultaneously multicultural and multinational communities because both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants live there and share the locale with non-Jewish residents. They are likewise transglobal chronopolises because transnational temporal relations constitute one of their modes of operation, not just diasporic social formations that preceded the existence of the state of Israel, the ancestral biblical homeland. This last feature, however, constitutes a singularity that distinguishes the Jewish diaspora from other diasporas that emerge from migration from a legally recognized nation-state and whose first-generation immigrants were born in that homeland. What this comparative sociological study of global neighborhoods unveils is that the integration of the Jewish quarter evolves as the outcome of the internal management of disjoined interactions at the local, translocal, and transnational levels within the multiple locations of the group, with other individuals and communities, and between various networks of relations that inhabit or traverse the enclave. The architecture of the integration of the local community points to various levels and to relations between levels of articulation. So it is not enough to reproblematize the neighborhood in terms of relations between Jewish enclaves located in a number of countries. It is also important to pay attention to relations within a neighborhood and between enclaves of the group located within diverse sites of the national territory since they may be differently influenced by external factors and perturb aspects of the architecture of relationships. In this context, understanding the behavior of an enclave means understanding not simply interenclave and intraenclave relations, but also the multiple networks established by individuals or institutions that may or may not be in harmony with the rest of the community. It means understanding the borders and interferences between networks. These disjoined networks are part of the dynamic that contributes to the coherent integration of the neighborhood by the equilibrium that they produce and sustain. The collection of data for this research was carried out on several fronts to ensure their reliability, representativeness, and relevance. First, I undertook review of the literature on Jews in the European Union so as to have a sense of the larger context of neighborhood life and also to familiarize myself with pertinent and relevant issues before engaging in actual fieldwork in these places. I contacted several people and institutions ahead of time to alert them to my forthcoming research trips and enlist their collaboration and help. This portion of the research was carried out for a year at the University of California at Berkeley prior to my engagement in field research in Paris, London, and Berlin.

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xvii

I spent three months on site, interviewing informants. These interviews consisted of eliciting information on life histories, the functioning of local institutions, the organization of everyday life, the contribution of visitors to the neighborhood, relations of the residents with Israel and other Jewish diasporic communities, entrepreneurial activities, and interactions with city hall. Some of these interviews were done on a one-to-one basis, while others were group conversations. I selected a few informants on the basis of advice from members of the community, but the majority of interviewees were identified on the spot or introduced to me by other informants. The interviews were done in French in Paris and in English in both Berlin and London. Most Jews I encountered in Berlin were fluent in English and were educated cosmopolitans who understood the value of the research and were ready to contribute to its completion. I tape-recorded the views they expressed, and, in the evenings, transcribed the contents of these interviews. This strategy helped me to immerse myself in the data and pointed to new research questions for the next informants and new areas of investigation. In Paris, a young Jewish lawyer, the president of an association of merchants, a Gentile high school teacher who has been living in the neighborhood for more than fifty years, and the female head of a local Jewish NGO served as my sounding boards. They helped me find willing participants for interviews. Also, they provided me with local literature generated in the neighborhood and continued to do so even after I had left Paris and returned to California. Among this group, Michel Kalifa, the president of the merchants’ association, was central to the process. He introduced me to several people who came to his butcher shop, which literally served as the neighborhood headquarters of the research. In Berlin, the community center run by the Judischer Kulturverein Berlin constituted the informal headquarters of the research. Early on, I was invited by the president of the association to give an informal lecture to the group about my findings in Paris and to explain the rationale of the research I was about to undertake in Scheunenviertel. This presentation brought a group of people to the center, and I was able to arrange interviews with some of them later. One-third of the informants came from this group, another third from people I met after Shabbat services at the Oranienburgerstrasse and the Rykestrasse synagogues. The remaining informants were neighborhood people I met in the shops, art galleries, or nearby parks. In London, as well in the other sites, I lived in or near the neighborhood under study so that I could observe the activities of

xviii

Preface

the residents and participate in public events. The penetration of the Stamford Hill ultra-Orthodox Hasidic neighborhood was more difficult, probably because, prior to my visit, the community was alerted to possible terrorist disturbances as part of the unfolding of the post-9/11 drama. The transnational informants I was able to convince to talk to me were people I met at the local public library, in various shops, at nearby parks, plus the individuals whom a real-estate agent had contacted on my behalf. It was much easier to find willing participants in Golders Green by visiting Jewish institutions such as Jewish Care or meeting people at shops and restaurants. After returning to the United States, I maintained contacts via email with various people I met during my research trips in Paris, Berlin, and London, and they continued to help me online. Some e-mailed me to provide information concerning new developments in their neighborhood—for example, about the renovation of the neighborhood in Paris after the residents were unable to stop the mayor from further proceeding with that project. Others sent me print materials that they thought might be useful to better understand the plight of their neighborhood. The interpretation of each set of data was achieved by locating it inside the parameters of globalization theory and the discourse on the global city, on the one hand, and the literature on diasporic transnationalism, on the other. I felt it necessary to rethink the urban process by way of expanding its boundaries to include its overseas tentacles and to show how this reproblematization of the issue can provide a better frame of reference for understanding the trajectories of diasporic neighborhoods. The four Jewish neighborhoods are used here to unveil a new way to analyze various components of the global city and the multifaceted aspects of the global flows that traverse and constitute its translocal identity. Jerusalem, Israel June 2006

Michel S. Laguerre

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xix

Acknowledgments The preparation of this book, including research, writing, and revisions of the manuscript, has benefited from the participation and collaboration of a number of people in each phase, including digital searches of library materials, sociological and ethnographical fieldwork in each of these neighborhoods, interviews of informants, transcription and translation of outputs, advice received along the way from local connoisseurs and cosmopolitan academics, and students and scholarly audiences to whom aspects of this material were presented. I began working on this project because there was a void in the literature on the reconstitution of Jewish neighborhoods after the Holocaust. I was convinced that such a piece of research could contribute to our comprehension of aspects of the globalization process and lead to the development of genuine policies to help these communities to cope with the constraints, opportunities, and uncertainties of everyday life, in the hope that such a strategy could enhance intercultural dialogue, religious ecumenism, the practice of tolerance, and multicultural understanding. I want to thank first and foremost the interviewees in Paris, London, and Berlin and the following individuals who have helped me with the conceptualization of the project, the selection of informants, or the proper interpretation of specific events in their communities: Max Paul Friedman; Richard Rosenberg; Broz Brothers; Jean-Glovert Laguerre; Michel Kalifa; Francine and Jean Moreau; attorney Jais Avi Bitton; Pierre and Paule-Françoise Aubery; Claude Dubois; Aymeric Bogey (Paris city hall); Ernest Buchwald, vice president of the Conseil National pour la Mémoire des Enfants Juifs Déportés; Irene Runge, president of the Judischer Kulturverein Berlin; Rabbi Walter Rothschild; Stephan J. Kramer, general secretary of the Zentralrat Der Juden in Deutschland; Johann Colden; Heike von Bassewitz at Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland; Hannah Jacobs; James Henry Spohrer; Sharon Aboudara; John London; Geneviève Dantras; Michelle Bertho; Paul Hamburg; Aviva Lev-Ari; Pnina Geraldine Abir-Am; and my friendly neighbors, Ruth and Fried Wittman. xix

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Acknowledgments

I was able to use the facilities and services of several institutions in my search for appropriate documents pertaining to these neighborhoods. The staff of the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, the curators of the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaisme, the librarians at the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, and the managers of both Bibliophane and Librairie du Progrès, two well-known bookstores located in the Jewish quarter in Paris, deserve my sincere thanks for their help in identifying obscure, but pertinent materials to read. In Berlin, both the social sciences library at Humboldt University and the Jewish Community Center Library (Bibliothek der Judische Gemeinde) were useful for researching the post-Holocaust period in terms of the availability of literature on urban renewal, immigration, and ethnic interaction. The University of London Library and branches of the public library system of greater London at Stamford Hill and Golders Green were helpful for understanding the local history of these neighborhoods. The Jewish National and University Library of Jerusalem, the Doe Library at the University of California at Berkeley, the Graduate Theological Union Library, and the Hillel Foundation Jewish Student Center Library at Berkeley provided me with ample materials to consult on the subject. All along, a group of dedicated and hardworking graduate and undergraduate students at the University of California at Berkeley contributed in many different ways to the completion of the project by searching digital databases for relevant sources of information, by transcribing and translating materials, by preparing tables and maps, or by serving for specific periods of time as paid research assistants. For their hard work on behalf of the project, I am grateful to Debbie Yeh, Lauren Holley, Lauren F. Kaplan, Laura M. Tolkoff, Rahsaan Maxwell, Nell Milagny Gabiam, Jodie Atkinson, Bethany Burns, Alina Shlyapochnik, Nicole Rich, Robert Klein, Avi Zevin, Beate Kohler, Jennifer Tibangin, Raymond Pascual, Sara Pickett, Sara Zieger, Nancy Duong, and Carmel Javier. A portion of this book was previously discussed in academic and professional forums, including faculty seminars at the University of California at San Diego and the Institute for Comparative and International Studies at Emory University. Chapter 6 was presented at an international symposium on diasporic politics sponsored and organized by the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada at Reno and held in April 2006. I want to thank Gloria Totoricagüena for the invitation to participate in this conference and the members of the audience who commented on the content of the paper. Chapter 10

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was delivered as a keynote address at the first international Conference on Technology, Knowledge and Society held at the University of California at Berkeley in January 2005 and was later published as “Wiring the Local: The Production of the Global” in The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, 1 (7): 11–20, 2006. The book was prepared under the auspices of the Berkeley Center for Globalization and Information Technology and the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. I want to thank Bruce Cain, Jack Citrin, Nelson Polsby, Eugene Smolensky, Giuseppe Di Palma, Anne Benker, Karin MacDonald, Marc Levin, Liz Weiner, Peter Fong, Ben Burch, Paul King, Frank Lester, Nick Robinson, Mark Takaro, and Debbie Yeh for their support, encouragement, or administrative backup. Developmental editor Bud Bynack spent many hours intervening here and there in the text to ensure the coherence of my argument and the smooth readability of the book. I am grateful to him for the precision of his commentaries and his painstaking, professional, and erudite editorial work. Last but not least, I want to thank the anonymous reviewers who provided me with excellent comments and thoughtful suggestions for the revision of the manuscript, my diligent research assistants Alina Shlyapochnik and Katherine Adler who prepared the Index, and the wonderful team of editors at the State University of New York Press, namely, Nancy Ellegate, Allison Lee, and Kelli W. LeRoux, who have done their best to ensure wider access to the text. The proceeds from the royalty of the sale of this book will be donated to American Jewish World Service for the purpose of enhancing the lives of the least fortunate among us both in the global South and the global North.


Chapter 1


T

he study of European neighborhoods as “global ethnopolises” or “global chronopolises” can be used to understand the internal organization of the globalization process within the European Union.1 This “globalization from below” complements the “globalization from above” of international politics and trading practices between states. It is an intrinsic component of European globalization because of its distinctive contributions to the process. In other words, these local places are being transformed into operative global sites that link, in their own different ways, the local to the global, rearticulate the global with the local at the local level, and rearticulate the local with the global at the global level. The social integration of European neighborhoods has taken place at the same time the countries in which they are located are being integrated into the European Union. This manifests itself in the double adaptation of these neighborhoods, at the country level in terms of the urban policies of city hall and at the level of the European Union in terms of immigration policy, since the European parliament can undermine local practices.2 The reengineering of local practices is being carried out at the same time as diasporic residents of these neighborhoods are entertaining transnational relations with their homelands and other diasporic sites where their compatriots have resettled, thereby adding another layer of complexity to the globalization process. Jewish quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin have been singled out for this study because of the light they can shed on neighborhood globalization in the European Union. Since the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E., urban Jewish enclaves have mushroomed in the geographical area that became known as Charlemagne’s Europe, which today roughly coincides with the European Union. Throughout the urban European landscape, these quarters emerged as a result of Jewish immigration and the spatial segregation policies of the states where the diasporans settled. Of course, with further migration into the hinterland, which 1

2


occurred for reasons of commerce, family reunification, flight from religious persecution, or simply because of expulsion, some neighborhoods in the major cities of Western and Eastern Europe have served, at one time or another, as places where the Jewish population has been the largest demographic group.3 The word “ghetto,” meaning foundry, first applied to the officially designated Jewish neighborhood in Venice in 1516, was later used to refer to any Jewish enclave in Europe.4 Highly visible in Western European cities, these quarters became, during the medieval era, the first ghettos of the Western world, separating Jews from the rest of the urban population. In some cases, additional taxes were imposed on the economic activities of the Jews in these segregated areas.5 Over the years, these ethnic enclaves have developed a modus vivendi as marginal settlements that allow Jewish residents to prosper and reproduce Jewish culture, thus reflecting the spatial insertion and incorporation of the diasporic community into society. In one way or another, World War II and the Holocaust interrupted the linear progression of the social and economic integration of these Jewish enclaves into Western and Eastern Europe or in some cases completely destroyed them, as happened in Prague and Warsaw. Much has been written about the history of these Jewish ghettos up to the eve of World War II.6 For example, the lengthy historiography of the Holocaust provides rich eyewitness accounts of the destruction of the Jewish quarters in Berlin, Budapest, and Warsaw by the Nazi forces.7 The present sociological study of urban neighborhoods does not concentrate on the pre-Nazi period, however, but rather on the post–World War II period (1945 to the present) in an effort to reproblematize these global social formations by unveiling the role of the globalization process in the reconstitution and reconstruction of these diasporic Jewish spaces. The thesis of this book is that these quarters have emerged as global social formations because of the Jewish immigrants from the diaspora that inhabit them, the links with other diasporic sites and Israel that are maintained for religious, patriotic, commercial, and familial reasons, and the relations they have with the city government that regulates their social actions. It further argues that these global entities are a fundamental component of the globalization of the cities with which they share urban space—a fundamental component of transglobal urbanism. Globalization, far from reducing the role of the ethnic place in the metropolis, tends to consolidate its spatial expression as the niche for the expression, performance, and maintenance of a group’s social identity. These quarters are singular sites in networks of


3

transnational nodes. This analysis explains the specificity of the logic that engenders their positions in this global web of relationships. The sociological literature on urban enclaves distinguishes the “rich enclaves” (such as Boston’s Beacon Hill or Chestnut Hill), in which people choose to live to enhance their status, from the “poor enclaves” (such as the black ghetto or the Chicano barrio) that are segregated on the basis of the race, religion, or sexual orientation of the residents.8 It also discusses immigrant enclaves formed by ethnicity, as seen in Chinatown, Little Italy, Germantown, Little Havana, and Little Haiti.9 The emphasis in most of this literature on urban enclaves is placed on assimilation, showing the slow pace of the integration of these groups into mainstream society. The issues of immigration, urban poverty, housing segregation, social mobility, racial discrimination, crime, and the marginal location of places of residence usually are discussed from this sociological perspective.10 The majority of researchers frame the question of ethnic enclaves inside the geographical constraints of the nation-state precisely because they are interested in assimilation issues. This book shifts the emphasis from assimilation theory to globalization theory as the proper frame of reference for the study of locality. It also departs from earlier community studies by not assuming that the globalization of the neighborhood comes about mainly or exclusively as a result of the globalization of the metropolis. In contrast, it theorizes the local neighborhood as a global social formation that generates its own global flows, a formation that disciplines, influences, and pollinates metropolitan globalization. Paris, Berlin, and London have been selected for this study because of the role of these metropolitan centers in European Jewish life. Berlin’s Jewish quarter, Scheunenviertel, provides the most dramatic setting because remnants of the Holocaust and the devastation of Jewish life are the most visible there. It is also in Berlin that forms of reparation (including citizenship for displaced Jews, the financing of visits to their former homeland, the rehabilitation of certain locations, the construction of museums, and permanent police protection of some Jewish sites) have been most visible because of governmental intervention and publicity. Paris’s Jewish quarter, Pletzl in Le Marais, is also important because of the large numbers of North African Jews who came as refugees to the enclave to live alongside the Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews. London’s Stamford Hill and Golders Green are also interesting and meaningful diasporic sites because many of their residents came from the historic Whitechapel Jewish quarter, which the Nazi forces bombed, but, of course, never occupied, keeping the

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Jewish residential population somewhat protected and therefore spared from the ravages of the “final solution.”11 As we will see, while the globalization of the neighborhood does not occur solely as a result of the globalization of the metropolis, the ethnic enclave also cannot be understood by focusing only on its local aspects, nor can it be understood by focusing exclusively on its global components. To understand its transglobal integration and organization, we must pay attention to the ways it relates to the hostland, the homeland, and other diasporic sites. Yet the diasporic neighborhood also must be seen in light of its particular history within the processes of globalization. Neighborhood history reveals and unveils different forms of global connection, pertaining to individual, community, and generational practices. For example, the extraterritorial relations maintained by the first generation of immigrants are not likely to be the same as those maintained by later generations. These relations also might be more symbolic than real. Generational history reshapes relations with the mainstream system as well because later generations might be more interested in what is going on in their own places of residence rather than in the ancestral homeland, which they may never have visited. In addition, the identity of an ethnic enclave implies the coexistence of claims made by the homeland, which projects the diasporic place as an extension of itself; the hostland, which sees the neighborhood as an administrative unit of its territory and its residents as citizens who have rights (voting rights, etc.) and duties (paying taxes, etc.); and the community, which sees itself as having obligations toward its residents, loyalty toward the hostland, and responsibility toward the homeland. The global neighborhood thus is an urban community that shares a place that the residents shape out of their experiences, needs, and cultural practices, which result from their triple interaction with the mainstream urban system, diasporic sites, and the homeland with which they maintain commercial, religious, and social relations. Global neighborhoods appear in various distinguishable shapes depending on whether they are an asylopolis, in which the majority of residents are refugees fleeing political turmoil, religious persecution, or a natural disaster in their previous place of settlement, an ethnopolis, in which ethnicity constitutes the logic of its operation, a chronopolis, in which a calendar system different from the mainstream provides the logical itinerary of its deployment, a technopolis, in which high-tech work is the magnet of its constitution, a panethnopolis, in which its demography is made up of diverse immigrant groups, or a creolopolis, in which its residents are the offspring of previous generations of immigrants.12


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Urban Quarters Naming the European Jewish enclave or residential neighborhood a “quarter” deserves a sociological explanation if we are to understand its particularity in relation to other urban units of comparable size. To do so, we must explain the process of quarter formation. Quartering means the spatial incorporation, segregation, differentiation, and administration of a group by race, national origin, class, religion, profession, or sexual orientation in a specific area of the city.13 The formation and existence of urban quarters are based on different premises of social organization. Some urban sites have evolved as ethnic quarters because of policies of segregation or anti-Semitism entertained and enforced by the central or city government.14 The medieval Jewish quarters in Europe were constructed because Jews were not allowed, before emancipation, to live anywhere else in the European city. Social engineering from the top down produced the quarter as a segregated place. For example, the Jewish quarters in Paris and Berlin were created in the context of these customs and state policies. Other quarters have come about because of income and industrial work.15 Poor immigrants establish themselves in the areas of town where they can find the most employment and where they can afford housing. Here it is the ability to earn a living that influences the choice of residence, including the possibility of living among compatriots who speak the same language and practice the same culture. Upper-class individuals who do not want to live near the poor establish their own quarters, which appear sometimes as gated communities. Here, again, income is the driving force. The existence of poor quarters such as Jewish Scheunenviertel in nineteenth-century Berlin and rich quarters such as Beacon Hill in Boston can be explained by the income or social class that is at the root of their formation. Certain quarters develop based not on income or restrictive laws, but on self-imposed religious clustering.16 Stamford Hill in London is increasingly becoming such a quarter because of the continuing immigration of Hasidic Jews. They congregate in this neighborhood, buying homes, welcoming members of the faith, and enlarging the community for the purpose of carving a congenial social context in which they can practice their religion. Other quarters develop from totally different principles, such as sexual orientation.17 The Castro district in San Francisco is such a quarter. It primarily attracts people who are engaged in same sex relationships. In the process of forming a homosexual quarter, residents

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have developed a supportive community of their own, facilitated by living among like-minded neighbors. Some quarters are based on profession, as is the case of neighborhoods with artists’ communities. Artists congregate in these areas because of affordable rents, the existence of space for their studios, and an environment propitious for their artistic creativity.18 The bohemian context of these quarters serves as a place of work, a residence, a spur to intellectual and artistic creativity, and a marketplace where they can attract people to buy their output (paintings, sculpture, etc.). The Latin quarter in medieval Paris served as such a place. It accommodated both artists and Latin-speaking students who attended the Sorbonne. In the sociological literature, a quarter is invested with two meanings: It is seen as either a community or an administrative unit.19 It is seen as a community when the emphasis is placed on the people who live in the area, their lifestyles, the local history, and the quarter’s relations with the rest of the city. For example, one could speak of one quarter as being different in its population composition from another quarter. This community focus corresponds to the bottom-up approach to the study of the neighborhood. In contrast, the top-down approach sees the quarter as an administrative unit. It is a category used by city hall and mainstream society to explain the geographical partitioning of the urban landscape, the free-market reality that leads to such an outcome, and the management of such a unit to ensure that it is in harmony with the zoning policies of the city. These two meanings of a quarter refer to its local performance. In this book, the Jewish quarter is invested with a third meaning—in addition to the two previously mentioned—that captures both its local and global orientation. It is viewed as a global chronopolis. This view emphases its local incorporation into an European city, its interaction with city hall for its survival and reproduction, the ongoing relations of its residents with their homeland or foreign place of origin, and the different calendar (lunar-solar) that religious Jews use, which sets the enclave apart from the rest of society. The quarter is a transnational pole of a global continuum with the homeland and other diasporic sites serving as the dispersed nodes of this circuit.

Cloistering the Quarter The making of a quarter cannot be completed until a cloistering process sets the boundaries that separate it spatially from the rest of the city. Cloistering means “enclosure” and can be done from the inside,


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by the resident group itself, or from the outside, by society. A quarter comes into being when it is physically cloistered, a geographical demarcation that has social implications. Separation stemming from the inside is done either consciously or unconsciously for the purpose of preservation and protection of the community’s cultural traditions. This process develops out of everyday practices, which create the self-imposed need to separate the community from the rest of society. This is seen in the case of the Hasidim who, in the absence of any legal prescription, carve a social niche compatible with their religious aspirations. From the outside, separation is imposed by society for the purpose of segregation (racial or religious) or administration. Cloistering the quarter requires a willingness to participate in the social construction of an area or to recognize it as a distinct site of society. It sets a group of people living in a specific site apart from the rest of society, geographically speaking, separates the site from others, and in some cases even provides it with a name, such as “the Jewish quarter.” Such a name specifies the national or religious identity of the group and its separateness as an administrative district. In other words, an ethnic quarter becomes such only when it is cloistered, meaning that the group holds the site as its turf or territory, that city hall recognizes it and provides public services tailored to the specific needs of the community, and that society recognizes it because of its exoticness, its role in city affairs, and its reputation as an enclave different from other neighborhoods. Cloistering implies a series of mechanisms. These include the legal justification that emanates from the policies of the city and the working of market forces that allow such a social transaction to occur, which in turn involves such factors as the fluctuation, displacement, construction, and ghettoization of housing stocks. Cloistering is a geographical isolation from society that necessarily leads to the reinforcement and strengthening of community ties, social solidarity in the face of perceived adversity, socialization in the ways of the enclave, preservation of customary practices, and the development of a new hyphenated identity. Cloistering also implies that the lack of integration reinforced the “otherization” of the other. It creates borders inside of which state practices can be implemented as well as a new site for law enforcement to patrol. Borders are zones of transgression for community expansion and are sites of conflict because the mainstream wants to incarcerate the group inside these limits and the group wants to reach beyond its enclave to meet housing demands. Borders, whether symbolic or real, are distinct features that one must cross to join either side of the

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divide. In short, cloistering is a procedure to incarcerate the global in the local, that is, it is the local disciplining of the global. It does so by prioritizing and amplifying the local aspects of the neighborhood over its global features. When such a trend is reversed, one witnesses the process of decloistering. Decloistering a quarter is the process by which the local enclave becomes fully able to perform its global identity in a gentrified environment, resulting in the shift from the globalization of homogeneity to the globalization of heterogeneity. It comes about as a result of the repeal of housing segregation laws and restrictive covenants, the will of city hall to modernize the locale, and the availability of efficient communication and transportation systems. Whether the process is driven by the diaspora, market forces, or by city hall, decloistering provides new opportunities for the rearticulation of the global with the local, the disincarceration of the global in the local, and the structured performance of the local in the global.

The Articulation of the Local with the Global The ethnic neighborhood is not an isolated phenomenon, but is connected to an elsewhere. Heretofore, the lack of attention to the intertwining of its global and local dimensions has been due to the need to attend to more tangible practices that can be used by the city or state government to resolve immediate problems. In this vein, problems of segregation, housing, crime, the integration of ethnic enclaves, racial discrimination, and the functioning of ethnic economies have taken precedence over developing paradigms that include the global production of urban everyday life at the neighborhood level. By replacing a local approach to the study of the ethnic enclave with a more balanced framework that emphasizes both its local and global parameters, I wish to correct the fallacious belief that neighborhood problems are caused and generated locally. Most are not, because they are a result of encounters between external and internal factors. Therefore, the trajectory of a local place is shaped by the global relations, which it maintains with external entities. In this light, enduring solutions for the eradication of neighborhood problems must also be sought in the interface of the community with outside actors. Here we are referring to identifying the institutions, ideologies, and transnational practices that produce such problems. The focus on the tail end of the process may not always be sufficient unless the parameters of the globalization of the local neighborhood are understood and its fundamental aspects addressed.


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One of the fundamental aspects of the globalization process is the role played by information technology in its deployment. Information technology provides an extra means for the connections of a diasporic neighborhood to the outside world. A wired office or home, used for linkages with outside agents, is fundamentally a node in a global network and therefore a global site.20 Connectivity not only globalizes the ethnic enclave, but also provides more permanence to the process. If we accept the idea that globalization seen in this way affects every aspect of society, it makes sense to study these ramifications not only in the macrostructural realm, but also in the microstructural forms of engagement, where agency practices can be decoded. Jewish neighborhoods in the European Union offer sites where this analysis can proceed. These diasporic neighborhoods provide a window on the unfolding of the globalization process because they serve as incubators in which internal and external factors interface. Thus, a theory of globalization that pays equal attention to macrostructure, microstructure, and agency will be useful to develop in order to understand both the local and global parameters of daily life in these neighborhoods. This analytical distinction will be followed in this study by focusing on the local place as the embodied site where global practices are choreographed and performed and by identifying multiple neighborhood aspects that are entangled in global practices. To begin to achieve this end, various behaviors of global neighborhood practices will be analyzed: the local site as a niche that individuates the processes of globalization, as a node in a transnational network, as reglobalization because of deglobalization, and as a transitory or permanent state.

Local Niches and the Globalization Process Globalization is often studied in terms of flows, mobility, and crossborder relations, but not always in terms of the behaviors of local neighborhoods. If local sites are nodes in global networks, however, they deserve to be studied as global phenomena so that the social shape of the local place and its import to the network can be deciphered. How does globalization get anchored locally? Once the local site is inscribed in or produced by globality, how does it behave? As a niche for the individuation of the global, in the local, different flows mix, interact, and crisscross. The grammatical rules that produce the outcome are shaped by the global as well. Of course, this larger process does not have one trajectory, but rather is made up of a bundle of crisscrossing circuits with contradictory outcomes that

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constitute the infrastructure of these neighborhoods of globalization. What are these processes and how can they be studied? Seeing a local site as a niche where the processes of globalization are individuated means that globalization manifests itself in different fashions, which explains the dissimilarities in outcomes among different places. In other words, a niche localizes global processes, and the encounter of global flows in local places produces different local outcomes. The role of the local place as a node that gives its own imprint on global processes cannot be underestimated. Consequently, one may argue that a local site provides clues on how aspects of the globalization process unfold. The rule of thumb here is that the previous history of a neighborhood and social conditions on the ground structure the content and variability of the local outcome of transnational practices. In other words, the local history of the place shapes the local outcome of the global process. Different places with different histories have different global outcomes as well. In turn, the global process as it lands in, traverses, or is produced by local realities can reinforce, transform, or have minimal effect on the local site. This process plays a reinforcement role when the linkage sustains local institutions and maintains their existence, as shown in the case of diasporic religions, which need a connection to the homeland as justification for the faith of the brethren. However, it plays a transformative role when the linkage changes the parameters of relations on the ground. For example, diasporic relations with the homeland sometimes work to strengthen the position of opposition parties and undermine the popularity of the national government. Here the word “niche” conveys the idea that a locality, because of its internal dynamics, may be more attuned to some global processes than others. This difference in local outcomes may be due to the kinds of agents involved in such a process. For example, some global interactions involve individuals, while others involve groups; some are outward looking, and others inward. The concept of a niche emphasizes once again the ways in which the social context puts constraints on what can be achieved by global linkages and in which communities reposition themselves to fit in the evolution of the global network.

The Local Viewed as a Node in Global Networks Through various types of connections or relationships, a local site becomes a node linked to other nodes, a new type of locality. As a node, it provides an infrastructure for the deployment of globalization, and it is also influenced by what happens within the network.


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Because locality is a node, it can generate output to activate a global undertaking. It does so as the initiating mechanism that influences the behavior of or even gives birth to the network. The local is the place at which various networks interconnect, and they provide the context that influences this interconnection. Since every community is involved in different types of activities, there are multiple linkages that are molded locally. This means that the local’s internal structure also is constantly being remolded by external influences because its own functioning depends on the central, peripheral, or incidental types of these relationships in the network. Local nodes do not all have the same weight in a network. Some are more influential in the global network than others. Sometimes they attain this status because of events that occurred in their midst. This is what happened when the Goldenberg Restaurant in the Jewish quarter in Paris was bombed in 1982. Jewish communities throughout the world waited for news from Le Marais to find out if their loved ones had been injured. Not all global relations are initiated from elsewhere, either. Some have evolved from the local. This explains the two-way process of the globalization mechanism. As a site that converts incoming processes to meet local needs, the local finds itself as a destination in the process. Furthermore, the global operates on the basis of a stratified system, which contributes to the diversity of local outcomes. This stratification is not permanent, but is constantly being unmade and remade.

Locality Viewed as Reglobalization Because of Deglobalization The globalization process does not always maintain a linear progression. Deglobalization also can occur. Neighborhoods can become deglobalized because of the deportation, internment, or elimination of groups of residents. When this happens, previous global linkages may no longer exist, leading to a transformation or relocalization of the site. This creates a locality that has been, to a great extent, deglobalized. At the end of the nightmares of war or persecution, however, the neighborhood may return to a new form of stability. This occurs with the return of some residents while others have left for good, having been killed by their persecutors, emigrated to other sites, or placed in state institutions because of incapacitation. In the absence of old residents, new migrants may move in with new extraterritorial ties, remaking the place once again a node in a transnational network.

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Reglobalization marks the end of one global process and the beginning of another. We see here that globalization at the local level has a history: It can be made, unmade, and remade and may not proceed in an unbroken continuum. For the neighborhood, reglobalization brings different actors, different external connections, and the pursuit of different goals because of different activities, even if the physical infrastructure remains the same. Here we have physical continuity without social continuity. The trajectory of the globalization process at the local level is thus sometimes made up of interruptions, reconnections, new connections, and the elimination of old connections. Reglobalization presents a new face for the neighborhood. It becomes globalized with a new local system of practices.

Globalized Locality as a Transitory or Permanent State Temporality in the globalized locality appears in different modes. Some practices are transitory or incidental and only globalize the enclave for a distinct period of time. Other relations are routine and more permanent and have up and down periods. Some relations are cyclical and are activated on a regular basis. The global relations or connections of the diasporic enclave thus have a tempo that can be studied at the neighborhood level. This temporal structure allows us to distinguish between times when relations are dense and times when they are not. Neighborhood life tends to follow the ebb and flow of these global practices, which can cause a neighborhood to maintain a rhythmic cadence not totally in sync with that of the mainstream chronotype surrounding it. The cadence of the Jewish week, for example, with its peak day on Saturday, provides a global rhythm different from the rest of the metropolitan community in Berlin, Paris, and London. When a neighborhood is permanently linked to an elsewhere, the form these extraterritorial relations take also may vary. Some relations do not survive the purpose for which they were created. Some are accidental or not preplanned, and others are suppressed. Two forms of neighborhood links to the global must be singled out: infrastructural and relational. Infrastructural links are the myriad ways that the local is wired with the interests of other localities: money invested in banks that travel from site to site, insurance paid to out-of-state institutions, neighborhood institutions that are the subsidiaries of their headquarters located elsewhere, and neighborhood businesses that are dependent on homeland institutions for their goods in order to survive. This kind of


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“infrastructural globalization” has existed, in one form or another, for many years. Relational links, by contrast, focus on human interaction and proceed from a different logic. “Relational globalization” thus links family members located in diverse overseas sites, grassroots organizations that operate transnationally, and individuals who entertain cross-border relationships. These two types of extraterritorial relations are constitutive of the local scene and cannot be divorced from one another.

Transglobal Diasporic Urbanism What emerges from the connections of these sites to each other is a new type of urbanism that is transglobal in its mode of operation and the form of city life its produces. Saskia Sassen speaks of “a systemic dynamic biding these cities . . . an economic system that rests on distinct types of locations and specializations each city represents . . . the formation, at least an incipient one, of a transnational urban system.”21 She concludes her observations and analyses based on economic and financial linkages between global cities such as London, Tokyo, and New York by saying that “whether this has contributed to the formation of transnational global urban systems is a question that requires more research.”22 In the debate over the global city, various types of transnational commercial, financial, familial, religious, and social linkages have been documented and analyzed, and this literature has unveiled the multiplicity of factors and the plurality of niches that constitute the makeup of such global urban systems of practices. Michael Peter Smith has ventured to make sense of this literature and has extracted from it what he thinks might contribute to our understanding of this new form of urban restructuring, which he refers to as “transnational urbanism.” He uses this concept as “a cultural rather than geographic metaphor.”23 Furthermore, he sees transnational urbanism as a “marker of the crisscrossing transnational circuits of communication and cross-cutting local, translocal, and transnational social practices that ‘come together’ in particular places at particular times and enter into the contested politics of place-making, the social construction of power differentials, and the making of individual, group, national, and transnational identities, and their corresponding fields of difference.”24 He further argues that we should shift our emphasis in the study of cities “from globalization to transnational urbanism” and calls for a reconfiguration of urban research to refocus on “transnational urban studies.”25 This book seeks to further this shift in emphasis. The forms of a transglobal urban system depend on the shape of each of its transnational

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components, as we have noted. Until we understand the modes of operation of these diverse units and their connectedness, we may not be able to understand the global integration of global neighborhoods. Hence, our option is to focus on these components—diasporic enclaves and their extraterritorial relations—to understand how cross-border urbanism and global neighborhoods are mutually feeding and sustaining the existence and shape of each other. It is my view that such a bottom-up approach unveils processes that otherwise might not be made explicit or might be cluttered by the top-down approach used by global city analysts. In this context, I conceive of transglobal diasporic urbanism as the process by which global neighborhoods become embedded in the social organization of networks of transnational sites that mutually influence and sustain each other. This transnational interaction is achieved through the expansion of the local place because of the translocal life in which the residents are engaged, the linkages to transnational networks that blur the boundaries of its geographical parameters, the connections to different sites for diverse reasons that globalize the local structure, the mobility of people and things that is intrinsic to the social reproduction of both the unit and the network, and the structural position that the local site occupies as a function of its location in the transnational hierarchy of sites.

The Plan of the Book This introduction has set the stage for the examination of globalization in three neighborhoods. Chapter 1 examines the unmaking and remaking of Jewish space in Paris, documents the social history of the Marais quarter, shows how each historical juncture in the evolution of the community was globally produced, explains the strength of the Sephardic community that has succeeded the Ashkenazi community, and provides an interpretation of the trajectory of the quarter. Chapter 2 delineates the history of the Berlin Jewish quarter, its destruction during World War II, and its symbolic reappearance after the reunification of Germany. It follows the plight of the Jews who returned to East Berlin after the war and analyzes the everyday life of the community by taking three critical moments into consideration: the first decade of the socialist regime, the era of the Berlin Wall and its aftermath, and the postreunification period. This reconstruction of local history has been done with the help of members of the local community, who provided their interpretation of events. Chapter 3 studies two Jewish enclaves in London: Stamford Hill and Golders Green, whose population initially came mostly from the


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historic Jewish ghetto of London’s East End, Whitechapel. The various streams of Jewish migration from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa are also documented to show the global composition of these neighborhoods. These sites are studied from the perspectives of various actors, both Jews and Gentiles, who have all witnessed the arrival of Jewish immigrant cohorts to these neighborhoods. Chapter 4 examines the relations of Paris’s city hall with the Jewish quarter. The city administration has been studying the best way to intervene and renovate the Jewish quarter. It has argued that this area needs to integrate with the larger modernization plan for the city being implemented by the mayor’s office. This controversy has created a messy situation in the neighborhood due to the merchants’ association’s protests against such urban renovation; they believe it will lead to the extinction of many shops and the eventual disappearance of the Jewish quarter itself. This chapter analyzes the controversy and explains what is at stake for both sides. Chapter 5 studies the Jewish quarter comparatively, both as a place of residence and as a business district. As a residential neighborhood, it has developed social institutions for its people as well as for outsiders. The bookstores where residents can acquire religious books and cultic objects, the synagogue and oratories where the faithful attend Sabbath prayers, and the kosher shops and grocery stores where they can purchase their weekly food intake are local institutions central in the reproduction of the neighborhood as a diasporic Jewish place. Businesses that cater to this diasporic clientele are an important component that gives the neighborhood much financial stability, feeds competition among local entrepreneurs, and attracts tourists to the enclave. Chapter 6 explains how the rhythm of life in the Jewish quarter is in disharmony with the rest of the city on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. There, the Jewish calendar takes precedence over the Gregorian calendar used by the rest of the urban community. On the “day of preparation,” the shops close early on Friday afternoon in comparison to Gentiles’ stores; on Saturday, the shops are closed for the Sabbath, while nearby non-Jewish stores are open; on Sunday, the neighborhood is alive with tourists patronizing the shops. Throughout the year, religious Jewish celebrations such as Yom Kippur provide a different rhythm of life in the neighborhood. These ethnic festivities affect the flow of activities and produce a distinct temporal characteristic of the enclave. Chapter 7 shows that the renovation of these quarters as “sites of memory” by city hall was often done with the motivation of luring tourists and their money to these locations to fatten the city coffers. Here, the idea is to remake these areas as exotically Jewish as possible to ensure a tourist trade, instead of the intent to modernize the built

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structures. As long as these quarters remain Jewish-like, both Jews and non-Jews will visit them. This aspect of heritage tourism is also fashioned to appeal to Jews in search of their roots, who may visit the enclave for that purpose. Entrepreneurs organize formal group visits, films, festivals, and lectures to attract Jewish and non-Jewish visitors as well as students to the locale or site of memory. The city thus adds the ethnic enclave in its map of exotic neighborhoods as another place to visit. In the end, this move generates publicity and thinly veils the fact that the neighborhood has moved on to another level of its incorporation in the city’s administrative structure. It has become a theme park. Chapter 8 examines the Jewish quarter as a global entity or social formation. It emphasizes global features of the Jewish quarter, its global logic, its relations with Israel and other Jewish quarters that sustain its religious life, its transnational economic activities, and its political engagement on behalf of the security of the state of Israel. It explains why fundraising to support humanitarian Jewish efforts in the fields of social services, education, and religious activities is periodically undertaken for the survival of the group and why security has become an important element that ties these communities together by providing trained guards, collaborating on security measures, or sharing intelligence so that the communities may protect themselves. Chapter 9 focuses on the patterns of Internet and cell-phone use in these Jewish neighborhoods. It looks at how these communication tools have contributed to a multimedia environment in each neighborhood; how they are used to communicate with overseas parents, to read foreign Jewish newspapers, to participate in cyberforums about Israeli politics; and how some use the Internet to engage in online commercial transactions. It explains how the Internet has provided an infrastructure for transnational family socialization and how it has become a major component of digital diasporic globalization. The penultimate chapter shifts the focus of the analysis from agency to structure in an attempt to study the larger context of the impact of formal Jewish organizations on everyday practices in the Jewish neighborhoods in Paris, Berlin, and London. It posits that what goes on in these neighborhoods cannot be explained simply in reference to the exclusive realm of local players, but also is affected by the interference of other individuals and associations located outside these enclaves. It shows that the influence of these “external” entities—formal institutions, political and trade relations of the country with Israel, the movement of Jewish high-tech workers from one site to another—is multivocal, and affects the neighborhoods in myriad ways, sometimes minimally and at other times maximally depending on what is at stake


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or the mitigating circumstances. In the process, it explains the translocal embeddedness of these neighborhoods of globalization. The conclusion explains how these neighborhoods operate, how they are linked to each other, how individuals and goods circulate through these nodes, how they provide protected niches for those persecuted and in search of asylum, and how they form a complex global urban system. It identifies the elements that constitute the logic of such a global urban system.


Chapter 2

Paris’s Jewish Quarter Unmade, Remade, and Transformed

T

he Jewish quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin went through different phases in response to the Nazi forces or Gestapo occupation.1 Since not all of these Jewish neighborhoods were formally occupied, they each had different war experiences, which materialized in their built environments and demographic composition.2 In other words, the effect of World War II varied from one setting to another. In one way or another, however, each of these cloistered neighborhoods was unmade by the war, then remade and transformed—hence the need to explain the unmaking process of urban ethnic space in order to understand the mechanisms of the remaking, reglobalization, and transformation of these global neighborhoods. The unmaking process of ethnic neighborhood space takes various forms and does not happen overnight, except in cases of disaster such as an earthquake, bombing—or war. More often, it is a slow process that unfolds over several years because it consists of several phases. Once these steps are identified and analyzed, the process sheds light on various aspects of the mechanisms of ethnic spatial transformation. Unmade space refers to the destruction of a neighborhood as a place and means three things: the destruction of the physical place, as in the bulldozing of buildings; the destruction of the social use of the neighborhood, without demolition; and the relocation or detention of the residents. The absence of the people means that physical properties such as buildings and synagogues, although damaged, are still present, but the longtime residents are not, and therefore the space has been socially unmade. In turn, remade space results from some change in the physical or social space of the neighborhood, whether it is planned or unplanned. It implies the return of the same group of people to the neighborhood, but occupying different positions; the repeopling of the neighborhood 19

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by newcomers; or a mix of the two. Remade space can refer either to the reorganization of the physical space or the reestablishment of new social spaces or networks of practice. In being remade, even when the intention is to reconstruct or preserve what originally existed, spaces also inevitably are transformed. Transformed space has two dimensions: local and global. The local refers to the appropriation of sites by others, the use of buildings for new functions, and the remaking of the built environment. The global dimension involves the existence of new connected sites, different kinds of connections linking one site to another, and the reorganization of the networks of relationships in terms of hierarchy, importance, logic, and rationale. With the birth of the European Union, for example, a new spatial incorporation is at work at the national and pan-European levels. This double spatial adaptation reorders the previous national incorporations by placing national integration inside the larger framework of negotiation with the union. In the same vein, the remaking of the Jewish quarter with the birth of Israel as an independent nation-state transformed that space. The quarter has been globalized in the sense that Israel, not simply the old Jewish quarter in Jerusalem, now occupies a prominent place in the network of sites with which the diasporic Jewish quarters are connected. It also means a reordering and rehierarchization of nodes in the transnational network of Jewish sites and the reliance on Israel for diasporic security and as a possible place of refuge. In this sense, the independence of Israel remade and transformed the global spatial incorporation of the quarters. The migration of North Africans to Paris also remade and transformed the Jewish neighborhood there by heterogenizing the composition of the population religiously, linguistically, and socially and by fragmenting the community as the immigrants develop institutions and maintain contact with their respective homelands. In analyzing the history of the global in the local, we have proposed that the local has a global history the same way that the global has a local history, and that the history of locality cannot simply be seen as a local production, but also as a result of intertwining with globality. This is so because of different transnational relations, including their strengths over time; different global outcomes at the local level; different local articulations as a result of different global connections; different global compositions of the local because of international migration; different global orientations of the local with linkages with Israel, Germany, France, England, and the United States, depending on periods or events in any of these nodes; and different global positioning of Jewish institutions, including social services, reli-

Paris’s Jewish Quarter

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gious organizations, and political party affiliation. In the same way that an ethnic enclave is a global formation inside the global city, specific institutions such as a synagogue or a restaurant are also global social formations inside the global neighborhood. The larger implication here is that anything local—a firm, a church, or a household—can be studied as a global institution. In other words, every local place is a bundle of global flows. In this chapter, the global history of the Marais Jewish neighborhood in metropolitan Paris will be studied in terms of five critical junctures that have had lasting effects on the transformation of the locale: the Shoah, the North African Sephardic migration, the Six Days’ War, the Goldenberg Restaurant bombing, and the Intifada crisis. These five moments illustrate the process of unmaking, remaking, and transformation.

The Shoah There is no doubt that Nazi Germany’s Jewish extermination project, partially implemented during the Vichy regime (1940–1944) and the Nazi occupation of Paris (1942–1944) affected the historic Jewish neighborhood in Paris most because of the negative demographic shift it caused as a result of the forced internment of a portion of the population and the migration of a sizable number of Jews to the countryside or to other countries to hide from persecution.3 The unmaking of this space began with the mobilization or voluntary enlistment of a few men to serve in the French defense or resistance forces, which involved their movement from the Jewish neighborhood to the barracks.4 Since there was no set time for the return of these men, some household activities were undertaken by other members of the family and synagogue attendance was affected. Some Jews departed voluntarily to hide in the countryside or emigrated outside France. This departure was based on a knowledge of current events and the advance of Nazi troops. Involuntary departure involving selective raids by the police took individuals to various detention centers before their deportation to the death camps, accounting in a major way for the partial depeopling of the quarter.5 The enactment of denaturalization laws prevented some from exerting their liberal professions or holding public administration jobs, making them unable to take care of themselves and their families or to pay their mortgages and maintain businesses.6 And a despoliation program, intended to appropriate Jewish property as part of a grand scheme to Aryanize the economy, transferred properties and goods

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to the French government or to non-Jewish French businesspeople.7 Finally, the return of the wounded, humiliated, formerly incarcerated, and hidden who were forced to restart their lives all over again and the international search for displaced and lost children and their possible reunification with their biological or adopted parents caused the reassembling of a handful of households and initiated the global remaking of the neighborhood.8 It must be said that a sizable portion of the Jewish population in the neighborhood consisted of first-generation immigrants, individuals who had migrated from Eastern Europe because of pogrom activities there.9 They were the first to be picked up by the police of the Vichy regime and deported to the detention and later concentration camps.10 The raids on Jewish homes were done periodically, and not on the same day or at the same time. Sometimes the police arrested only men of a certain age; sometimes they came to pick up a specific individual and left the rest of the family untouched; sometimes an entire household would be picked up, but not other individuals in the building; sometimes they arrested only the Jews in the building who had identified themselves or were identified by others as such; other times, the police specifically came to pick up children and their mothers.11 In this sense, the raids were temporized, and this temporization affected the unmaking of the quarter. The raids gave the quarter a tempo different from the cadences of life in other neighborhoods. An Ashkenazi old-timer who had lived in the neighborhood during the Nazi raids describes a different kind of temporization related to the successive orders for the internment of the Jewish residents of Paris: “There are three things to make note of during the war in Paris. There was this war phase in May 1941, August 1941, July 1942 . . . May 1941: It was the internment of Jews on the order of the town hall. August 1941, it was the Jews of the Eleventh Arrondissement and July 1942, it was the Jews of all of Paris.” The neighborhood was not the only place where the raids took place. Some individuals were summoned to present themselves for identification and detention; others were taken away as the police circled the neighborhood and arrested them; some others were taken while walking on a public street; and still others were visited in their own homes by the police and arrested.12 A space of fear was constructed not only in the neighborhood, but also wherever a Jewish person happened to be, since he or she could be arrested anywhere, anytime, and deported to a detention center. The Jewish neighborhood during World War II was a global enclave in many different ways, including how its diverse population reflected


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the traditions of the countries from which the residents came. In this sense, the Jewish neighborhood in Paris was part of Yiddishland, with representative populations from Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Jerusalem, and, later, Germany. Yiddishland is a transnational diasporic space that connects various sites where Yiddish-speaking Jews live and maintain ongoing relationships with each other.13 The war dismantled not only isolated locales, but nodes in this transnational network of Yiddish-speaking diasporic sites that made up Yiddishland. The unmaking of the Paris node rippled through the routine of the network and, of course, affected life in other nodes. An example of this is the migration of some residents from the quarter in Paris to the Jewish quarters in London, Jerusalem, and New York City. The spoliation scheme was another factor that led to the depeopling of the neighborhood. The effects of this policy were numerous. It entailed the official transfer of Jewish property to the state or non-Jewish businesspeople, the involuntary return of properties to Gentile partners or members of the family, or the liquidation of such a property if one did not want to lose everything. Of course, in any case of liquidation, property was sold for a price under its true value because there was no time to haggle or find better buyers. While Jewish proprietors were incarcerated, not only was their money taken under the spoliation scheme, but mortgages no longer could be paid, causing owners to face insolvency. Once a business was closed in this fashion, Jewish and Gentile employees found themselves without jobs overnight.14 The marking of individuals and property was undertaken as a way of separating the Jewish population from the rest of society and transforming it into a pariah group. The marked population was forced to carry distinct and visible signs of humiliation that stigmatized and identified them as outcasts of the new Nazi social order. The public signs on Jewish enterprises (code named “Jewish Business”) allowed the state to implement the spoliation scheme in an efficient manner, since otherwise it would not be able to identify all of these businesses. The private sign on the body of a Jew (a Star of David) would simply identify him or her as the targeted “other,” exposed for arrest at any time. In this sense, the scheme was complete, with a public aspect that prevented Jews from conducting business and a private dimension that publicly humiliated them as potential detainees, if not deportees. They were marked so that they could be discriminated against on the basis of their religious orientation and ethnic identity, thereby amalgamating citizens, immigrants, and secular Jews for the sole purpose of persecuting them as a group.15 The law of September 27, 1940, was explicit on this subject when it said that “all businesses, whether the

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owner or manager is Jewish, must be designated a ‘Jewish Business’ with a special sign in French and German, until October 31, 1940.”16 The procedure for getting these signs was spelled out in the following law: “Jews are obliged to wear a distinct sign according to the 8th Ordinance of May 29, 1942, concerning anti-Jewish measures. Jews are also obliged to report to the police station or their local prefectoral district office to receive badges in the form of a star, as mandated in the first paragraph of the ordinance. Each Jew will receive three badges and will be obliged to give in exchange for them one mark from their ‘textile card’ [carte de textile].”17 Not only were Jews prevented from holding public-administration government jobs and from serving as high school teachers or university professors (by a law passed on October 3, 1940), the draconian law of April 26, 1941, prevented them from holding any of the most meaningful jobs in the private sector. The law read: as of May 20, 1941, it will be illegal for Jews and Jewish businesses (for which a managing superintendent has not been named) to conduct the following economic activities: a) retail services, b) restaurants and hotels, c) insurance, d) shipping, e) export and warehousing, f) travel agencies and vacation planning, g) armed guards, h) all transportation businesses, i) banks and currency exchange, j) pawn shops, k) information or cashier desks, l) security services, m) running machinery, n) advertising agencies, o) all businesses concerning apartments, real estate, and mortgaging, p) employment agencies, q) marital agencies, r) all business concerning transportation of merchandise and industrial products (agents, brokers, representatives, passengers, etc.).18 Physical annihilation through deportation and death camps was only one aspect of the Nazi scheme. The other was “social death” by way of stripping Jews of their dignity and preventing them from holding worthwhile jobs. The unmaking of the neighborhood was not done without some form of resistance.19 The participation of some Jews in the resistance front against the Nazi forces is well documented in the historical literature, but, closer to home, there were many small acts to save lives. This was seen in the cases of the director of the elementary school on the rue des Hospitalières Saint Gervais and individuals who hid their Jewish neighbors in their homes or in some attic: “those who stayed are the ones who hid in apartments and had the children go out to


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buy things and food to eat,” said an informant. A few French police informed people before scheduled raids or prevented others from entering the neighborhood while a raid was under way. Sometimes resistance meant negotiating with the Gestapo to prevent an arrest, as happened in the following case told by an Ashkenazi bookstore owner and manager: We had to wear the star. One morning when the German officers were coming, they were entering the store and my wife was coming down the stairs. The officers said, “we are taking you to the police because you are not wearing the star.” My mother-in-law, who was a strong woman, answered, “you can very well see sir, that my daughter is coming down from her room, she has just woken up. She came down to have some coffee.” She grabbed her from the shoulders and said, “come on, get the hell out of here, quick.” And the Germans did not move. My wife worked in this store with my mother-in-law. They saw all the Jews that were coming from Poland, Russia, Lithuania pass by. They would come to the Jewish neighborhood to live there and the meeting place was in this area. The great painter Chagall used to come here. Trotsky used to come here and many very well-known Jews set up meetings here because we did not speak French. We only spoke Yiddish. They spoke Yiddish among themselves and since they had to eat something, my mother-in-law would make them tea with a piece of herring or strudel. That’s how it was, that was life. And when it was time for religious celebrations, prayer books were sold in the store, the Yiddish newspaper was sold in the store.

The remaking process of the neighborhood began shortly after the war as escapees came out of the camps. Very few had survived, and not as complete families, but rather as individuals. A handful of survivors came back to the neighborhood in the hopes of reclaiming their property from the government. Children with no surviving or unknown parents were placed with other Jewish families, adopted by French Gentile families, or even sent abroad to live with relatives. The return from the camps involved both the recuperation of lost properties and the reassembling of the family in a context in which they had no money or source of income on which to rely. In fact, even those who were not deported also had to adjust to a new life, since they were previously prevented by law to perform some public functions. Therefore, they were not in

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a situation where they could financially help the returnees because they themselves needed financial assistance, which was eventually provided, in part, by Jewish American benevolent associations.20 After the war, when it was time to start a new life in the neighborhood, the severe disruption brought to the Jewish quarter by the Shoah thus affected both those who were arrested and those who remained behind. An Ashkenazi who works in the textile industry recalled, “some hidden children who came back to the neighborhood are now senior citizens in the community. They were children during the war and survived because they were hidden. But entire buildings remained empty after the war. Many could not stand to come back and live in the neighborhood where they had lived with their family.” Not all of the vacant houses left by the deportees were recuperated by their owners, since most of these proprietors were exterminated at Auschwitz. We were told by an informant that “a part of these were claimed by the city of Paris.” It is worth providing a description of the neighborhood by a resident who reported on his childhood memories of living in the quarter. In my childhood memories, I am from the neighborhood. I was born here, but I am not Jewish. I always passed through Rue des Ecouffes. I remember that after the war, the entirety of this neighborhood was very poor. I was born in 1944. There were many buildings that were owned by Jewish families. I remember many postings that were written in Yiddish [1950] and the names were rather Central European sounding names, like Goldstein. There were also a few from North Africa [not from Algeria]. My parents lived around here in the forties. They knew about the mass arrests; the children progressively learned of them. I think that after the war there was a cloak of silence that fell. The Jewish kids didn’t talk about the war. And, at the time, one did not see children with yarmulkes. Maybe a little here . . . especially religious Jews. I remember that at the place where my grandmother used to live there were women of Jewish origin [Morocco], and those women spoke a Judeo-Arabic language. That’s why we get a little mixed up. My grandmother was from Bordeaux, and she spoke Gascon and didn’t have her certificat d’études. She would say that those women had their prayers. She would not say the “Yom Kippur,” but the “Grand Pardon.” The use of Hebrew words came progressively. Before they would “French-


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ify” everything. It was very picturesque in the neighborhood on Sunday mornings in the Rue des Rosiers when there were Jews from Central Europe. They had a poultry business. It was very vivacious. But the neighborhood was very poor. They would sell right in the middle of the street. An Ashkenazi businessman who operates a men’s clothing store and grew up in the neighborhood had the following to say about the evolution of the quarter before, during, and after the war. The neighborhood was very Jewish before the Holocaust, a neighborhood with a strong Ashkenazi Jewish concentration. Then came the war, the Holocaust, the various mass arrests. We know that the neighborhood was depopulated during that period. During the war, the neighborhood did not become completely empty. There are Jews who stayed on the Rue des Rosiers during the entire duration of the war. They escaped, by some miracle, the various German mass arrests or those of French militias in the service of Germany. There has always been a Jewish community here. After the liberation, there were very few people who returned and there was a big departure toward the United States and Canada. The situation of the neighborhood after the war can be gauged by the few stores that were restored. This was a sign of the revival of the ethnic business district and reflected the vibrancy of the community. An Ashkenazi bookstore owner and manager made the following comments: I have been here since 1933. My grandfather opened this store in 1933, and before, he had a little store on the Rue des Ecouffes at number 22. Now that place has been transformed. Our family came from Poland, like most at that time. The business owners who were here were tailors, shoemakers, they came mostly from Poland, Russia, Hungary. After the war, very few returned to the neighborhood; those that escaped, there aren’t many. We had here at least sixty small businesses, now there are only five or six left. That’s all. Individuals in the neighborhood reacted differently to the injustices committed during the war and the resulting losses and humiliation. For example, one informant said that “in the neighborhood, right after the

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Shoah, there was a resurgence of Judaism.” Some turned to religion to nurse their sorrows, but others lost their faith in God because, as one said, “God was not at Auschwitz.” Still others chose to protect their children from what happened during the war, and a conspiracy of silence was the strategy used by these families and schools. A middleaged French woman, the wife of a schoolteacher, put it this way: I was too young to be able to realize what was happening, and our parents weren’t telling us anything. In school, I was surprised to see that there was a plaque saying that Jewish children were being ripped from their homes and sent to concentration camps. I was surprised that there were five or six from our kindergarten and primary school who had been deported. People didn’t talk about it in our kindergarten. It was a public school.

The North African Sephardic Migration When the postwar situation created the context for the birth of the United Nations, the international forum legitimated the aspirations of third world nations to achieve national independence. The independence movements that swept through the world in the post–World War II era affected the status of the French protectorates in North Africa that served as homelands to displaced Jewish populations of the Sephardic tradition. As Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia officially detached themselves from France to become independent nation-states, contingents of the Jewish population who did not feel comfortable living in North Africa due to growing Arabinization and Islamization of official policies of these states departed for France or Israel.21 One Sephardic informant from the neighborhood said: “Those who stayed, thinking they would be able to cooperate with the Algerian people, quickly lost their enthusiasm when faced with massacres, crimes, and other things, despoilments from the French and some colonists who were settled there. So a sizeable number of Jews returned to France, to the European community.” Here is how a former professional employee of the French parliament explains the causes of this emigration: The arrival of the Sephardic Jews dates from post-Algerian independence, when France decolonized North Africa and when the tensions linked to the Middle East appeared in those countries. There are many Jews who came, first of all the Jews


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from Algeria or “Pieds Noirs.” The Jewish part of the Pieds Noirs and others came from Tunisia or from Morocco, because they could no longer stand the newly hostile Arab atmosphere, when for centuries they had lived in peace. With the defeat of the French army in Algeria and the independence of the former protectorate in 1962, this Sephardic population arrived in the neighborhood, replacing the Ashkenazi residents who did not return from concentration camps and those who had migrated to other areas in France and outside the country and inhabiting vacant Ashkenazi houses. Housing was affordable and stores carried the culinary items to which they were accustomed.22 Their presence in the Jewish quarter helped preserve the tradition of gathering on Sunday begun earlier by the Ashkenazi. As the owner of a kosher meat store who is himself an immigrant from Tunisia put it, “North African Sephardim also settled in this Jewish neighborhood that is called the Pletzl, which is an area where people got together on Sundays to make sure they would find one another. This tradition has been perpetuated to this day and continues to be perpetuated.” However, the strong Sephardic contingent in the neighborhood began to change various aspects of daily life. This could be seen in the new stores they established with goods and services to attract a Sephardic clientele and in Sephardic restaurants with North African dishes; Sephardic influence was also apparent when Judeo-Arabic language replaced Yiddish as the lingua franca of the community. Furthermore, Sephardic Jews began to control the synagogues due to their large number of worshippers, which resulted in the Sephardic rite being imposed on these congregations, and they assumed leadership roles in some of these places of worship.23 As a consequence of this Sephardic immigration, the community as a whole has returned to practicing a more traditional form of Judaism. The local Ashkenazi population adapted to this group of Sephardic immigrant residents, not only in the areas of religious life, but also in other aspects of social life. Schools, for example, catered to the specific educational and linguistic needs of Sephardic students. A non-Jewish Frenchman who attended one of the neighborhood schools in the mid-1950s and is now a high school teacher and freelance journalist noted: At the school of the Rue [Bussy] where I was, I had Jewish friends of Tunisian and Moroccan origin. I remember that those boys did not know how to speak French. The teacher

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Global Neighborhoods would speak to them in Spanish. For little boys like me who were not Jewish, we did not know what a Jew was. Someone would say that a person was a Jew, but we didn’t really know what that meant. And until I was fifteen, I could see that Jews and Muslims were different, but at the same time kind of similar to us. I had a friend at the Lycée Charlemagne who was a Jew from Morocco who explained the difference to me. Us, we didn’t know what that was. We were confused. I had friends, one who was Catholic, another Protestant.

One Ashkenazi old-timer explains that among the Sephardim, “ambitions were different. The customs were different, they did not endure the Shoah. During centuries, we lived separate lives, everything, was different. So we had to learn to get to know one another. Us, we were different, completely.” One thing that struck the Ashkenazim about the Sephardic way of life was their sincere friendship with Arab immigrants. According to an octogenarian Ashkenazi who lives in the Jewish quarter, If I can refer to the Sephardic Jews of North Africa, it must be acknowledged that there was hardly any racism between Jews and Arabs in North Africa. They tell me about the lives that they had and friends who were Arabs. We see that friendship here with the Arabs that they employ. There was an Arab who was killed at the Goldenberg Restaurant during the attack and another one who was wounded. They literally brought a number of Arabs daily to the neighborhood to work in the stores and even as a janitor for one of the synagogues!

The Six Days’ War The Six Days’ War that led to the victory of Israel over Egypt was a proud moment in the history of the neighborhood because this test consolidated the existence of Israel and gave the diaspora another good reason to believe in the definitive restoration of the homeland.24 Israel was able not only to defend its territory, but to humiliate its enemies and secure its borders, expanding its national territory at the expense of the neighboring aggressors. Of course, this war also consolidated relations between Israel and the United States. In the beginning of the war, mixed reactions were expressed by the people in the neighborhood. Some were afraid that the outcome


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might not be what they hoped for and that an Israeli loss would put Jewish lives in jeopardy in France, creating a situation similar to that experienced during World War II. An Ashkenazi owner and manager of a men’s clothing store in the vicinity of the Jewish neighborhood told me: “When it started, we all trembled. We were very affected, as though a second tragedy was happening to us. We were afraid that if Arab countries ever invaded Israel, it would once again be over for us. We would relive racism, anti-Semitism, etcetera. For us there would be a void without Israel. The diaspora is invested in it.” The war also was an occasion for emigration to Israel to help defend the motherland and show the centrality of the existence of Israel in the life of the diaspora. Some young Jewish adults from the neighborhood moved to Israel and, in addition, the community raised money to send to the homeland. An Ashkenazi Jew who lived in the neighborhood during the war said that “the Six Days’ War, it was marvelous. Many young Jews left as volunteers. There were many young men who enlisted into the Israeli army. My own son did not enlist into the army, but into a kibbutz.” A thought that crossed everyone’s mind in the community was the central importance of the Six Days’ War in reviving or developing French Jewish consciousness about the importance of Israel in the consolidation of their own identity. In a sense, Israel has given the people in the Jewish neighborhood a new identity. They had become a people with a recovered homeland, the diaspora of a nation-state. For this proud Ashkenazi who operates a store near the Jewish quarter, “the Six Days’ War ‘formatted’ the Jewish identity. In 1967, there was this great rapprochement between Israel and the diaspora of Paris. We realized that we belong to Israel and that Israel’s destiny was common to the Jews of the diaspora. It was the Jewish world, secular, traditional, not only the religious, that was affected.” After this stunning victory against Egypt, French Jews were proud to publicly express signs that symbolized their identity. Because of World War II and latent anti-Semitism in France, until then it was mostly only religious Jews who overtly displayed their yarmulkes or wore them in public. After the victory over the Arabs, the fear of harassment concerning the use of this religious garment was gone. A longtime nonJewish resident of the neighborhood, a freelance journalist and local historian, remembers this sudden conscious effort to exhibit one’s Jewish identity: “The yarmulke returned in 1967 at the time of the Six Days’ War. Since then the young [Jewish] people have come out with yarmulkes outside of the limits of the neighborhood. That’s the way I remember things. Before, they used to wear the calotte.”

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The Goldenberg Restaurant Bombing At lunchtime on Monday August 9, 1982, a small group of unidentified dissidents, believed to be of Middle Eastern origin, burst into Chez Jo Goldenberg, an internationally known Jewish restaurant and delicatessen specializing in Eastern European foods located at the corner of Rue des Rosiers and Rue Fernand Duval, threw a grenade, and shot up the establishment. Six people were killed—two American tourists from the Chicago area, one Arab employee, and three local Jewish clientele. In addition, twenty others were wounded. The dissidents escaped in the narrow medieval streets that link the Jewish quarter to Bastille Plaza.25 This event raised the emotional temperature of the French Republic. During the course of the day, several prominent politicians and government officials visited the neighborhood as a sign of solidarity with the residents and to pay homage to the dead. President François Mitterand attended a memorial service at the main synagogue of the neighborhood, and others, such as Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy, Interior Minister Gaston Defferre, and the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, also came to show their support for the victims.26 Many observers blamed international terrorist groups for the attack, for using the neighborhood as a theater to rehearse their position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The French police thought it was the work of the Palestinian splinter group Black June; the general public thought it was a retaliation against Israel’s invasion of Lebanon; the French government saw it as a result of tension in the Middle East; some residents blamed the attack on the biased reporting of events in the Middle East by the French press and television; for French Jews, it reflected “the local effects of international terrorism.” The importance of this attack in the local history of the neighborhood should not be underestimated. It was “the heaviest toll suffered by Jews in France since the Second World War.”27 A former employee of the French senate had the following to say about the Rue des Rosiers attack: In order to clarify things, I think the attack was in reaction to the Israeli conflict. I don’t think that it was an anti-Semitic attack planned by the French Right. It’s the beginning of attacks caused by the situation—among others—in the Middle East and in particular by the Israeli-Arab confrontation. Even with regard to the recent attacks in schools, cemeteries, it’s even more true. It has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, which


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was unfortunately noticed in France at certain times and which was an anti-Semitism of the far Right: French people who were proponents of the purity of the race. I think it was the conflict between the Arabs and Israel that caused this attack. The attack also caused a war of words between the Israeli prime minister and the French president. In reaction to the Rue des Rosiers attack, Menachem Begin said, “I am proud to be the Prime Minister of Israel, but first of all I am a Jew. If the French authorities don’t put a stop to murderous attacks by Neo-Nazis against Jews, I will not hesitate to call on the young Jews of France to defend their people and their human dignity.”28 In a formal reply during a television interview, President Mitterand said: “The head of the Israeli government does not know the France of today or its leaders very well. It is not healthy or right to accuse France in this incident of having practiced anti-Semitism, which is repugnant to me.”29 The bombing also caused a few Jews who were living in another arrondissement to return to the quarter as a way of reclaiming the locale as an ethnic space. A middle-aged Jewish woman who is a lawyer by profession, but is exclusively involved in nonprofit work, told me: I came back to the neighborhood in 1988 by accident. I was already in Paris, and I was subletting in the Thirteenth Arrondissement. But I frequently visited the Centre Rachi de Paris. It was a coincidence because I obtained government housing. It turns out that the Paris town hall inherited a neglected building [en dégérence] and entrusted the management to OPAC [the Office Public d’Aménagement et de Construction]. Since it was before the attack on the Rue des Rosiers, there were not a lot of people who wanted to live here. After the attack, I was passing through this street and when I returned home in the afternoon, I opened the window with nice Jewish music to blast the street with because provocation is mine, too. I had written to the OPAC saying my case number has priority and despite the danger in the neighborhood I would accept to live on that street. I had seen that they were repairing the buildings and it was to rediscover the memories of my family, you know. For a few residents, it was time to leave the neighborhood and suspend their synagogue attendance as a way of preventing and escaping imminent danger. Others remained in the quarter, although much shaken by the experience. An older Ashkenazi who had lived through

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the ordeal of the Holocaust told me in the course of an interview: “The attack on the Rue des Rosiers was a wake-up call [levée de boucliers], as though Judaism was being awakened a little. We felt affected, concerned, as Jews. Not as French or as human beings, but as Jews. It was painful. For us it was a quasi-national event.”

The Intifada The Intifadas have been uprisings of the Palestinians against the Israeli state. The first Intifada lasted from November 1987 until the Oslo Accords in 1993 and was the result of Palestinians occupying their land to prevent Israelis in tanks from confiscating it and destroying their olive trees. This ignited an uprising and caused the closing of schools by the Israeli government. The second Intifada was caused by the visit of Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount, located inside the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem. His statement that doing so was his right as an Israeli citizen was seen by some Muslims as an act of provocation.30 For a longtime resident of the Jewish quarter in Paris, the Intifada negatively affected the Jewish neighborhood because of the negative image of Israel projected by the international media and worldwide opposition to Israeli’s policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians. He said during an interview in mid-December 2003 that “the repercussions are very simple. We have the impression today that the Western world is dropping Israel, and by dropping Israel, it is abandoning its Jews. The United States is a prisoner of its war in Iraq and of its 2004 presidential election. Bush’s future is uncertain, in as far as his father, who suffered a terrible electoral defeat. Today we are afraid.” While the residents of the Jewish quarter by and large support the state of Israel, many express the position, which they share with the larger French public, that it is necessary to establish a Palestinian state. An Ashkenazi who is involved in several nonprofit Jewish organizations said: I will give you an opinion that may appear weird: Palestine should have its own state. We don’t live in Israel. We are here. And of course when one is not totally implicated in something one feels things differently, not like the one who is living them. And I understand very well the revolt of those Israelis against those attacks, Intifadas. On the other hand, we feel that it is absolutely necessary that Palestinians have a country that is theirs. That, totally and 100%. We hope that it will get settled


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as soon as possible. We are absolutely against the colonies or settlements which are increasingly very religious. We don’t like that very much. The second Intifada caused the return migration of a few French Jews who had acquired Israeli citizenship and young individuals who had completed their military service in Israel. They came to the neighborhood after determining that the risks associated with life in Israel, including the tension created by the suicide bombings and the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, were not worth the rewards. Some returned to the neighborhood based on the advice of their parents or simply to retire in a more peaceful and less risky environment. The second Intifada magnified periodic tensions in the neighborhood. Every time there is a suicide bombing or another crisis situation in Israel, it reverberates in the neighborhood, and people are on edge. They call their loved ones in Israel, buy the Israeli newspapers and read the commentaries, and meet in the streets or in the stores to exchange notes and comments with neighbors. In other words, their emotions are stretched out transnationally in response to events in Israel.

The Global Fashioning of the Local In the critical junctures outlined above, the global is pervasive in the everyday deployment of the local. Each moment was traversed by global flows and processes that allowed the locale to reconstitute or reglobalize itself. The unmaking of the neighborhood cannot be understood outside the context of the foreign occupation by the German army, which shifted the dependence of the residents from the French government to a foreign power, and the separation of French Jews from foreign Jews (mostly from Eastern Europe) for the purpose of making them more vulnerable to arrest and deportation to various places of detention. Globalization was invoked in the despoliation procedure, as Jews who held citizenship in countries outside Nazi-occupied territories were protected. In such cases, foreign embassies were asked to manage such properties and, in so doing, protected the properties of some of their subjects. A few individuals were able to escape to other countries through international migration. The international migration of Sephardic Jews remade the neighborhood once more via the stores and restaurants they created that cater to Tunisian, Moroccan, and Algerian clientele; the synagogues they preside over that attract Sephardic Jews; the transnational relations

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they maintain with family and friends in North Africa; and the JudeoArabic language they speak next to the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim. The presence of these non-Eastern European foreign immigrants has given an Arabic flavor to the Pletzl. The Six Days’ War unveiled the neighborhood as an extraterritorial tentacle of Israel as it forged a moment of despair and then of hope for the community; allowed some individuals an opportunity to publicly reaffirm their Jewish identity by wearing a yarmulke in public; caused some individuals temporarily to leave the neighborhood to provide military support and defend the state of Israel; and offered an opportunity to raise funds to send to Israel. The attack on the Goldenberg Restaurant marked another moment when the globalization of the neighborhood became transparent. This bloody incident placed it on the map and made it visible as a node in a transnational network of diasporic sites. The restaurant itself is known for its Eastern European dishes and the overseas Jewish tourists who visit it every day.31 The attack projected the global identity of the Jewish quarter, which was evident by the public reaction of the prime minister of Israel and the televised reply by the French president. The Jewish neighborhood of Paris now moves to the rhythm of events in Israel as each crisis situation related to the Palestinian question raises the emotional temperature of the residents, propels a series of phone calls to loved ones in Israel, and upsets the everyday routine of the neighborhood. The Intifada causes animated conversations on the Internet among members of the Jewish diaspora, which places the community in a virtual arena of global communication networks. In other words, the global insinuates itself in the local in many different ways, making a concentration exclusively on the local for the purpose of understanding the behavior of the Jewish neighborhood not very productive and even less insightful.

Chapter 3

Berlin’s Jewish Quarter The Local History of the Global

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cheunenviertel, the historic Jewish quarter in Berlin, provides an exemplary illustration for the study of the local history of the global.1 Globality is anchored in localities as nodes of its performances, as markers of its heterogeneity, and as signs that map its geography. Every locale brings its own set of constraints and limitations that choreograph the deployment of the global in distinct ways. The history of the Berlin Jewish quarter reflects the Fascist, Communist, and democratic regimes that have fashioned its built environment.2 In a process that mirrors the unmaking, remaking, and transformation of the globalized locality that we have just examined in Paris, the Nazis were responsible for the destruction of the Berlin Jewish quarter during World War II and the ensuing Communist regime treated it with indifference and neglect, while the democratic federal government after reunification developed policy guidelines for the renovation of the neighborhood and the protection of its historic sites. While the Nazis caused the extermination and global dispersion of the local population and the Communists added Jewish-owned houses to the state-owned stock of housing as part of the scheme of nationalization of private property, the reunited Germany of the European Union, in contrast, allows owners to recoup their former homes.3 In analyzing the local history of the global, this chapter seeks to extend the preceding analysis to explain the implosion of the global in the local as a central mechanism in the production of the neighborhood. It discusses singular aspects of the “security” issue as it is constructed and understood from within Germany and shows how the global engenders the local. It further shows how the microprocess of the globalization of the local has singular features because the issues confronted by a locale are not identical to those of other sectors of society. It proposes that the local, in this case the Berlin Jewish quarter, 37

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provides us with a site that needs to be decoded to understand hidden aspects of globality that may help us to better grasp the variable geometry of the transnational circuit of relationships of the Jewish diaspora and the inscription, incorporation, and integration of the neighborhood in both the city and the global network. In so doing, it sheds light on the articulation of one of the nodes to the transborder network of sites that make up the malleable cultural infrastructure of transglobal diasporic urbanism.

The Post-Holocaust History of the Jewish Quarter Scheunenviertel was a vibrant Jewish neighborhood before the period from 1934 to 1939, when the first anti-Jewish German legislation was enacted. With World War II and the Holocaust, which lasted from 1939 to 1945, Scheunenviertel was abruptly destroyed. Since then, it has not been able to rebuild itself as a place with a dominant Jewish population. According to the president of the Jewish Cultural Center: there are about ten Jews who live here. I know four, maybe there are another five that moved in. Maybe a few American Jews have moved in lately. Most Jews live in the former West Berlin in Charlottenburg near the Reform synagogue. Of course, the more money they have, the better they live, so more well-off Jews live in Wilmersdorf. There are also Jews in Rykestrasse, near the Lauder Foundation, and they have a yeshiva there. As an object of study, the Jewish neighborhood of Scheunenviertel thus is more symbolic than real. The buildings are there, but not the people. Scheunenviertel joins the network of Jewish diasporic sites not as a neighborhood community, but as a collection of buildings and institutions. This highlights the heterogeneity of sites that constitute the infrastructure of transglobal urbanism; some of these may disappear while new ones may appear. This process shows the resiliency of transglobal urbanism and explains that the architecture of its organization may change, but not the nature of its transborder urban identity. The post-Holocaust history of Scheunenviertel is marked by three singular events: the division of the city into East and West Berlin, which lasted from 1949 to 1989, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, which prevented individuals and families from freely moving from one side of the city to the other, either for resettlement or to visit family members, and the reunification of the two Berlins in October 1990,

Berlin’s Jewish Quarter

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which made it possible for Jewish property owners or their families to reclaim their lost property. The quarter was remade in two new beginnings, a painful and dreadful one during the Soviet occupation and Communist regime it endured and a more pleasant and hopeful one with the capitalist renaissance it has enjoyed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. During World War II, the Jewish quarter in Berlin was almost completely destroyed, not just as a social entity, but physically as well. After the war, because Jews did not return in large numbers to the quarter, there was little Jewish life in Scheunenviertel. It was only after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that Jews began in earnest to return to the neighborhood. During the period before reunification, the Rykestrasse synagogue in East Berlin was the main point of assembly for the community, with a congregation of approximately two hundred Jews.4 There was also a small community center used by Jews in the area. Those who relocated to West Berlin did better, partly because of the size of their population, which was estimated by Jewish leaders to be approximately eight thousand people. During the Holocaust, the Jewish ghetto lost most of its population as many were deported to and murdered in the concentration camps. A few Jews left the country and resettled anywhere they could find asylum. After the war, the Jews who survived did not return to Scheunenviertel to regain their property. Instead, they chose to stay in the countries to which they had fled, in part because under Communist rule, their homes had become state property. Even those who survived the Holocaust in Germany did not have much to return to, since many of their houses were bombed by Allied Forces. According to Cristoph Stroschein, “at the end of World War II, 39% of Berlin’s housing stock and 35% of its industrial plants lay in ruins.”5 Also, according to a Jewish informant, “after the war, people did not want to form a Jewish quarter. They lived where they could afford, according to their economic situation [upper class, middle class, and the poor]. Scheunenviertel was a historical remain from the beginning to receive immigrants.” One Gentile informant, who is a journalist, confirms the historical context of the post–World War II period and the reasons why the area did not serve as a magnet of attraction to the suffering and humiliated Jews: After 1945, the district of Mitte was completely destroyed. This part got hit less badly than some other areas. First remember, in this district of town, 80 percent of the buildings either became rubbish or were completely burned down to the exterior

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Global Neighborhoods wall. So there was not much to return to then. Very quickly the quarter became a Soviet occupied region. This was another disincentive for the Jews to return, because it had become part of the Communist puppet state of the German Democratic Republic, which was very antireligion of all kinds. After the Holocaust, if Jews came back to Germany, they went to the Western occupied zone, not to East Berlin. If they went to West Germany, they lost their property in East Germany. The East German Republic really took the Communist ideal deadly seriously because of German perfectionism, in very much the same way the Hungarians adopted these principles with a greater degree of laissez-faire. The Jewish property in East Berlin all went into a housing association. During the Communist period, the Housing Authority patched up the old properties, but very ineffectively because of a lack of material, a common problem in the East German Republic with the legal condition the area was in before the wall fell.

The reconstitution of the East Berlin Jewish community was done not only through the return of a few Berliners to the area, but also because of the refusal of Polish Jews detained in the camps to go back home to Poland due to questions of safety or fear of persecution there and because there was not much to return to there either, since the rest of their families had been exterminated or had left the area.6 The remaking of the Jewish community in Scheunenviertel was made possible by three factors: the return of Berlin residents who had hid from the Gestapo to avoid being taken to the camps, the return of a group of former Berliners who escaped the Holocaust by going to Shanghai, and the increase of new arrivals from Poland.7 Interestingly, some of these returnees established and participated in the Association for Refugees in Germany from Shanghai to maintain their separate identity and for mutual support.8 During the Communist period, however, the shift from private to state property with regard to neighborhood housing was a disaster, since most of these homes were not renovated by the state. As a result, the area continued to attract only the very poor. One non-Jewish German informant, a manager of a women’s clothing store whose uncle lived in the area after the war, recalled the following: “This quarter started a completely new history at the end of the Second World War. This part belonged to East Berlin. Jews used to live here and poor people were here as well. I know that my uncle used to live near here and


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he told me that his mother told him: ‘You don’t want to go near the Jewish quarter because there are bad people there.’ ” A few years before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the East Berlin government had developed a policy to restore Jewish religious sites. However, several observers saw this move as a way of deflecting criticism from the West, rather than as way of benefiting the Jews. As one informant puts it, “Erich Honecker had put money in equity to restore what remained of the synagogue at Oranienburgerstrasse. Everyone was saying that the only reason he did so was because he was waiting for an invitation to the White House and needed to impress the Jewish lobbyists who would lobby the American president on his behalf.” A middle-aged Jewish informant briefly recounted, on the basis of his experience as an old-timer, the relations of the Jewish community with the Communist government as seen in the few public places Jews could use for community purposes: Until reunification, the East Berlin Jewish community had approximately three hundred members. It was a very special community, very liberal under the Communist regime. The Jewish real estate was owned and used by the state. The Jewish community had three buildings on Oranienburgerstrasse and some small rooms for community use. Just in the last years of the Communist regime, the Honecker government suddenly decided to create the Foundation for the Rebuilding of Synagogues. Money from the German Democratic Republic and international Jewish organizations was used to rebuild the complex of buildings on Oranienburgerstrasse [numbers 28, 29, 50, and 51] and to restore the dilapidated synagogues. The situation in Scheunenviertel was very simple. The Jewish community had a few small rooms for an office and a home for the elderly. I thought it necessary to ask a longtime member of the Jewish community to provide me with a longitudinal oral history of the Jewish ghetto from the end of World War II to the present so as to record the social context of Jewish life during this period.9 The goal was to obtain an internal view of the sequence of events and the rationale behind them. She was selected for this interview based on the recommendation of a Jewish American historian of postwar Germany who had earlier given me a tour of the ghetto during my first week of fieldwork. This interviewee presented details about the dynamic of the Jewish community on the eve of the reunification of Berlin, the intricacies of

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daily life, the new secular institution Jews formed to discuss problems of common concern, the strength of the Russian-speaking Jewish immigrant group, the cultural events they organized, and the beginning of the public expression of Jewish life.10 After the war, the Jewish community started in Berlin, as far as I know, with six thousand Jews who somehow hid or survived and came back, for political reasons, to the East of Germany. They were not considered Jewish, but rather socialist or Communist. The people of West Germany came back because of their lost property, to join the Jewish community, or because they were survivors from the displaced-person camps during wartime, who just came back to Berlin. Some of them stayed, and some of them emigrated to Palestine, the United States, or other places. In East Berlin, the Jewish community was shaken from the beginning because, up to 1961, people had the ability to walk across the street and into the West and also because people were culturally interested in being Jewish, not religiously. So they had nothing to do with the official Jewish community. The community was renovated after the war. So some got together on Friday and Saturday for the Shabbat and for the holidays; of course, there were always rabbis, mostly former Berliners from the United States, Israel, or Canada, who visited and offered their services. Of course, as people were dying off, their children stopped coming to the high holidays because they were not interested. In response, the Eastern Jewish community had a Sunday afternoon service once a month that was open to everyone who wanted to come. In 1986, we started to organize a group of younger people—“Jews for Jews”—to get together. This brought new life to the Jewish community because everybody knew somebody or brought somebody to the meetings, and people came to temple instead of going to church. So there was a lot going on, which caused the development of the Jewish Cultural Center in East Berlin. The Jewish community in 1989 amounted to one hundred and fifty people. These were people who were affiliated or registered with the Jewish community, who were saying “I am a member of the community and I have to pay taxes.” Since then, a few people have passed away, and we have now joined the West Berlin community. Now the situation is

Berlin’s Jewish Quarter changing as people move in and out, and 40 percent of the population speaks better Russian than German. In East Berlin, there was no process of regaining property after the war, so . . . those who came back were not the people who owned property. If they were still alive, survivors started regaining their property after 1989 because of laws enacted after reunification mandating the return of property to Jews. This went not to the people who lived in East Berlin at that time, but mostly to those who lived abroad and could then make claim. I do not know of any East Berliner who lives there that got his or her property back. Now there are people who are receiving money because of the forced labor they did in the camps. The fight in the beginning was for pensions for the victims of Fascism. It’s still not resolved. The East gets a different amount of money than the West. I think after the wall was put up there was only one synagogue functioning in East Berlin, and this is where traditionally things took place. Then there was an anti-Israel development from Stalinist Russia, and there were conspiracy theories that the Jews were American capitalists and imperialists. So Jews were not necessarily interested in being identified as Jews. This was all politics. The leadership of the East German Republic was mostly Jewish because they were pro-Soviet and anti-America. It is a bit confusing. There were a lot of people who went to the synagogue in East Berlin and were ready to move to West Berlin. These people were interested in Jewish culture. They bought the books and went to movies up to 1986. After 1961, the Jewish community could not grow from the outside or inside, so it became smaller and smaller. After 1989, Jews were scared because many of them felt that everything was lost again. They began to demonize the new system as worse than the old system. We founded the Jewish Culture Club in 1989–1990 as a place where East German Jews who did not have much contact with other Jews and who did not feel good with the Germans could meet. They came to find Jewish comrades here. There was a lot of talk of politics going on. And they started to reminisce by saying “In 1923, this happened” and “In 1939, that happened” and so on. People started to talk about their lives in the group. No one had asked about their experiences before,

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Global Neighborhoods and they were afraid to talk. Now they felt free to talk. This included resistance fighters, who came to talk in order to feel good. It was the practice to come here to learn about Judaism. We found that some older people had come back who knew all the blessings, all the prayers, and that all of the songs from their childhood or from when they were in the left wing or other Jewish organizations. So this is how we found out they had a Jewish education. After that, some of the children became interested and formed Jewish communities. At this point, there was still a difference between East and West Berlin. Around 1990–1991, the Jews from the Soviet Union came, and then everything changed. The distinction between West and East became irrelevant because there was a Jewish crowd around. When Germans went to a place where everybody was Jewish, it was a shock for a lot of them. The Germans were surprised that there were Jews in Germany. They said, “Where do these people come from? They don’t look like Jews.” It was a real culture shock. They asked the officials, “Why do they come here?” For some reason, they could not go to America. That’s why they came here. Up until today, the German people asked the same questions, “Are they truly Jews? They don’t look like Jews.” “Do they continue to travel? Do they stay here?” They come to Germany because they had either a Jewish father or mother or were intermarried with a spouse who was not a Jew. Probably half of them are not actually Jewish, but they are legally here. The Jews who came do not want to go to Israel because of the political situation. They could have gone to Switzerland or other countries.

The History of Jewish Scheunenviertel after Reunification With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Jewish community entered a new and exciting phase of its existence due to the freedom of movement and expression that came with the end of Communism in Germany. Since 1990, Jewish life has come back alive in the former East Berlin, thanks to the continued slow immigration of Polish and Russian Jews.11 Andreas Nachama notes that, “starting in the 1970’s, a small number of Soviet Jews had been allowed to emigrate to East Germany. Now, with the demise of the Soviet Union, what had once been a trickle became a mighty river, and this presented major problems for the Jewish community. Old rules for accommodating immigrants were


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quickly scrapped, and by the end of the year 2000 there were over 11,000 Jews in the Jewish community, many of them from the former Soviet Union.”12 However, housing in Scheunenviertel is now very expensive, and most of these new arrivals take up residence elsewhere in the city, wherever they can find affordable apartments.13 As a result of reunification, this part of the city has a lot of young inhabitants from all over Europe who can afford the housing rates. When Berlin became a capital city again, many young people from the western part of Germany and from other European Union countries, such as England, came to Berlin to make a life. Many are now living in the Mitte district. As an informant puts it, “We start seeing young people coming from major European cities where it is much more expensive to live than it is here. That simple financial incentive is attracting a lot of people here. I see that being a very important force in the city’s future.” Since the fall of the wall, which led to the concerted effort to return Jewish property to their descendents, this area has regained some sense of its Jewish identity. Although in 1990 the government started returning property to their owners, it has been a very long, slow, and complicated process, one in which the quarter’s identity as Jewish has become diluted. There is a general policy that the senate of Berlin helps subsidize renovation of the houses in the area, but there are problems. The city policy of returning Jewish property to its owners or their heirs could not be easily implemented because most of these individuals were no longer living in Germany. The intent of such a policy was to bring more Jews to the Scheunenviertel area, but so far it has not succeeded because most of these individuals do not want to live in Germany, and in cases of buildings where there are many heirs living in different countries, the legal process of adjudicating proprietorship to collective entities is very complex.14 The unintended consequence of this policy is that many of these properties have been sold by their Jewish owners to non-Jewish German buyers. Harmut Haubermann explains why and how these transactions take place: Instead of restoring Jewish culture, restitution of private property has led to a massive transfer of property. The now very old survivors of the Holocaust or their heirs usually put property they have reclaimed straight on to the market, either because they no longer have roots in Berlin, or because they want to have nothing more to do with Germany. If there are no living heirs to be found, the “Conference on Jewish Material Claims”

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Global Neighborhoods can place an application. If successful, they have to sell the house or land immediately and the proceeds go to a fund for victims of the Holocaust.15

A Jewish teacher gives another reason why the houses that are reclaimed are eventually resold. He said that “when people get their home back, they usually sell it. They sell them because they are living abroad and it is difficult to manage a house in Germany when you live in Los Angeles.” A journalist I interviewed who lived in the area proposed the following alternative explanation: When property here was returned to survivors or Jewish descendents, it was mostly sold because this whole area is a socalled restoration area, which means that anybody who buys property and signs a contract to buy it has a second contract with the city authority that details all of the things they must do to the property. More or less when you become the owner, you are obliged to restore the property within a period of two years or you have to pass it on to somebody else. Most of these people sold their houses, took their money, and proceeded to move, to eliminate the considerable problem they would otherwise have. So there are a few Jewish properties that have returned to Jewish hands, with which the Jewish owner said, “Wonderful, we will do that.” There must be some, but there can’t be that many. Occasionally it happens that a family buys a house, saying they are going to renovate it, receives money from the senate, and later declares bankruptcy. In such a circumstance, the house may remain vacant and unfixed, causing much consternation for the neighbors. In one particular case, such a house was unused for eight years before being declared part of the cultural heritage, and the Berlin senate then proposed to do the renovation job itself. I spoke to a Jewish lawyer from former East Berlin, who happened to sit next to me at the Lubavitch Chabad in West Berlin after a Shabbat service, to get a sense of the recovery process of Jewish properties and to find out why more Jews did not return to Scheunenviertel after the war. He explained that there are two issues pertaining to inheritance and the Soviet system and gave the example of a Jewish building that was returned after 1990 to its Jewish owners. There were 256 members of the family that claimed rights to inheritance, including children and grandchildren. With the dispersion after the war, most of them were


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not living in Germany, but abroad. Only through selling the building could they receive their portion of the inheritance. He mentioned the case of a building in which most of the units belonged to Jews and a single unit belonged to a Gentile. They could not sell the building, since the Gentile wanted to keep the apartment. He mentioned a third case in which a Jew owned a lot of land, but found in 1990 that a house had been built on it with a state permit. He was presented with the choice of either buying the house from the owner or selling him the land, and he did the latter. In these ways, Scheunenviertel has become a site of fevered real estate transactions as older residents who could not afford the rent moved out and younger couples and bohemians moved in, causing returned Jewish property to change hands. According to the manager of a women’s clothing store who moved there in 1990, “It was old people in dilapidated tenements. In the last ten years it has completely changed, with galleries, stores, and young people.” The reacquisition of these buildings and the selling of some to new buyers also has led to a good deal of construction activity in the neighborhood. When I lived in East Berlin during the summer of 2004, some of the old buildings still had visible signs of the damage inflicted on them during World War II. The renovation of some of these buildings also has made these properties more attractive to the young and wealthy than to the old and poor. And those who have come to live there or work there are, for the most part, not Jewish. A longtime resident of the locale summarized his view of the changes that took place in this way. You have a very complex situation, with people moving in all kinds of directions. After the collapse of the wall, there were young families both from the East and the West who moved out to locations very close to where the wall used to be, and a kind of greenbelt around the city slowly developed. This was a significant effort between 1990 and 2000. Now the situation is kind of reversed, because some people did not like living around the green, and they are now moving back. Different districts of the city, East–West, are going up and down. This is one that steadily is on its way up. Germans who work for Gentile institutions in the neighborhood have their own perspective on the recent history of Scheunenviertel. I stopped one day into the Women’s Evangelical Center to inquire about their work and find out about their relationship with the Jewish

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community. The staff person who coordinates the activities of the office had the following to say: We work together with Jewish women who are interested in feminist studies. This place was founded in 1992. I see from my work, especially with many poor people, like old women, who have been living here all their life and are now about seventy or eighty, that living here has become very expensive. So these older people are moving out. They started moving out after 1990, because prior to that it was cheap. If they own their apartment, they can stay, but if they have to pay rent for it, they cannot. Also, normal shops cannot stay and are replaced by expensive shops. The Jewish community in Berlin was a native, not an immigrant community. It was only after 1990 that Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe started arriving in large numbers. The Jews are no longer concentrated in this area. Like other people, they are all over Berlin. The location they choose to live in depends on their income and what they can afford. This area is also inhabited by transient female workers from Poland. They work here for some time and return to Poland. They have family here and go back and forth. After reunification, a new spatial polarization of the community took place. Before and especially after 1961, one spoke of two distinct Jewish communities in East and West Berlin. The Rykestrasse synagogue was the central place of worship for the community in the East. Religious Jews went there for Shabbat services and for the high holy days. Now those who live in or near Scheunenviertel attend the Oranienburgerstrasse synagogue instead or have the choice of going to any of the other synagogues that exist throughout metropolitan Berlin. The Rykestrasse synagogue has become the main center of worship for recent Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. After the reunification of Berlin, various Jewish institutions were revived, which was made possible by the return of public buildings to the wider Jewish community throughout Berlin. This includes synagogues and museums, a Jewish gallery, a Jewish social welfare center, the Leo Baeck House, the Jewish Cultural Center, and the Jewish School. These institutions are frequented mostly by people who do not live in the historic Jewish quarter. The history of the Jewish School there since the collapse of the wall is recounted by a Jewish teacher. Located on Grosse Hamburger Strasse, this Jewish secondary school served as a site where Jews were assembled before their deportation to either Auschwitz or


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Theresienstadt. Closed during the Third Reich, it reopened its doors in 1993 to welcome both Jewish and non-Jewish students.16 This is a youth school. It has been reopened for ten years; it is also a Gymnasium. Prior to the reopening, it had been in existence for 225 years and was founded by Moses Mendelssohn. It existed until 1939. Now we have more than three hundred pupils, but they are not only Jewish. There are also Christians, Muslims, and so on. I think that 60 percent of the pupils are Jewish. It is boys and girls. Only the wall on the side of the school was damaged during the World War II. The children were not deported. Some of the parents who used to live in the area were deported to Auschwitz. The school was closed. Some of the former pupils survived the Shoa, and a lot of them are still living in the United States, mostly in New York and California. Most of the teachers live in the West [West Berlin] and commute every day to the school in Scheunenviertel. The students come from all over Berlin, even from Potsdam. I think 80 percent are from West Berlin and 20 percent are from here. The majority of those who come from this area are mostly Jewish. Only about 2 percent from this area are either Muslim or Christians. With its multicultural practices and a good segment of Jewish children with a Russian cultural background, plus a few Muslim and Christian students, this school is a site at which the globalization process has anchored itself, transforming the locality into a node in the flows of transnational relations.

The Jewish Security Question in Scheunenviertel As a node in a global network characterized in many ways by the historical persecution of the Jews and the embattled status of the state of Israel, in Scheunenviertel, security issues are especially important. The post-Holocaust history of the Berlin Jewish quarter is embedded in the history of Jewish security as it affected the decision to return to the area, the ability to use Jewish buildings, the relations with relatives or friends abroad, the relations of the community with German civil society, and the protection of Jewish sites. Jewish security is at the center of Jewish life in Berlin in the post-Holocaust era. I witnessed the centrality of security concerns firsthand. On the morning of May 22, 2004, the beginning of my fieldwork in Berlin, I

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walked from the apartment I was renting in the Mitte District in the former East Berlin to attend the Shabbat service at the Neue Synagoge17 on Oranienburgerstrasse in Scheunenviertel. I arrived there at 9:39 A.M., because on Friday I was informed by one of the German policemen who stood guard at the front entrance of the synagogue that the next service would be held midmorning on the following day. Five policemen, employed by the city of Berlin, each with a side revolver, again stood sternly in front of the entrance of the synagogue. They were accompanied by a young Jewish guard who asked for a passport or piece of identification and the reason for my visit. After I entered the building, another Jewish guard showed me the way to the metallic checkpoint staffed by professional security personnel. As at the airport, I was asked by a security employee to put aside any metallic object I might have had (keys, money, watch). My briefcase was given to another security person for a routine check. Another security person provided the necessary backup and seemed to oversee the whole process. Once this ordeal was over, I was free to take the steps up toward the room on the top floor where Shabbat services were held.18 The following Tuesday, I attended an evening service at the Rykestrasse synagogue. The security check there was simpler and faster. Once I presented my University of California faculty identification card, the young security guards checked my briefcase and let me in.19 I had never seen anything comparable to this in religious institutions in the United States, and I began to think about the burden placed on these communities to protect themselves, the anxiety they have developed to cope with it, and the financial resources they must devote to this cumbersome and expensive task. I decided to ask key informants to comment on specific aspects of the history of the Jewish security question in the quarter. They looked at the issue from various angles depending on their position in the Jewish community structure as leaders, community organizers, or longtime residents. In the following interview, a middle-aged Jewish librarian at the Jewish Documentation Center of Berlin recollects his memories of the security question in East Berlin before the reunification of Germany. Basically I remember that before reunification, to enter a Jewish community center through the parking lot, you just had to lift and put the chain down. After that came the electronic gate, and now police in front. I came to Germany in 1981. The policing was connected to anti-Jewish events in Munich and bombing in Berlin. I understand that slowly they became more professional as new plans and projects were introduced.


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The Jewish guards are very new (they came about three years ago). In the beginning, we had just German police and Jewish employed as doormen. In Berlin today, we have an extreme case: we have the police who look outside, occasionally looking for passersby to forbid them to park their cars in front of the building. Then you have the security people—organized professional security that manages the gate—and then you have the Jewish guards, who look for specific people and speak to them. These are mostly young Israelis who work here after their military service. The guards are in their twenties. They are employed for a year under their contract. All of this security is paid for by the city: police, security guards, and Jewish guards. For the Jewish holy days, there are additional guards who come from the community. They are young members of the community who volunteer their services and are not paid (young women and men). All three types of security bear arms. These arms are hidden in the case of the security and Jewish guards. There is some general understanding between German officials and the Jewish community about the need for this level of security. Other countries cooperate very much in matters of security. If one country knows something about a specific threat against the quarter, it is possible that Israeli intelligence would inform the neighborhood in advance to prevent such attacks. When I posed the same question concerning Jewish security to a non-Jewish German journalist, he focused his remarks on what has happened to the synagogue on Oranienburgerstrasse in the aftermath of 9/11. The protection of this Jewish site became more visible because of the additional police force and the roadblocks that suddenly became part of the regular life of the area. It is worth telling about what the synagogue looked like a year ago because, pre-9/11, it was not so different from what it looks now. I cannot remember any kind of trouble by rightwing extremists. Right after 9/11, there was very much a sense of panic, and they put a row of huge concrete cubes in front of the synagogue. If you want to see them, they are sitting in front of the British Embassy now. There was a big fuss about them, because they looked horrendous. There was always one policeman in front of the synagogue. After 9/11, there are now three to five officers on guard. The government does this

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Global Neighborhoods because it would deeply embarrass them if anything happened to the synagogue, and they are doing their utmost to prevent such an incident from occurring.

I had a long interview with the thirty-six-year-old Jewish, Germanborn Secretary General of the Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland), who provided his interpretation of the history of the Jewish security question in the area. The situation in Germany about security . . . I hope you will understand that I will not give you specific details on the security measures that we have. I don’t think it will be useful for your survey anyway, but I will give you an overview. Situations concerning security measures for Jewish institutions and sites have been very important issues throughout the history of the postwar Jewish community. The quality of security measures specifically focusing on representatives of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Federal Jewish Agency—the measures have been strong. The previous president [of the Central Council of Jews], Ignatz Bubis [1992–1999] was one of the most highly protected Jewish representatives. Paul Spiegel [2000–present], the nowactive president, now has the same security measures. Actually the two vice presidents Ms. [Charlotte] Khobloch and Dr. Salomon Korn [2003–present] have the same measures, as well. This is a situation that we have had at the president level for the past ten to fifteen years. On the vice-presidential level, it started only with the former vice president, Michael Friedman, who was very outspoken on various issues, particularly on the issue of fighting anti-Semitism in Germany, whether it came from politicians or culture in other areas of the country. He was a very outspoken person going into grassroots movements, the public, local schools, and other institutions to speak about anti-Semitism. The reason he was bringing attention to the issue was a question of remembrance, of going into the future, not in terms of guilt, but in terms of a question of responsibility, which has come out of the knowledge of what happened between 1933 and 1945. He was putting it into a broader framework of discrimination, not only exclusively anti-Semitism. Besides that, security measures have changed—dramatically—since 9/11. Nine-eleven had a strong impact on the situation over here. I would not go so far as to say that the second Intifada

Berlin’s Jewish Quarter or the visit of Mr. Sharon to the Temple Mount was also a hot spot. Surely [that] changed something in the German attitude, the non-Jewish German attitude, about how Jews in Germany are seen: basically as Israelis, as people whose government is the Israeli government and not so much the German government. But 9/11 certainly changed the laws, because, since then, what we see is statistics that 20 percent of non-Jewish Germans are basically anti-Semitic. This has been a fairly stable number for I don’t know how many years. We always speak of 15 to 20 percent who will never change, who cannot change. The problem of anti-Semitism today in Germany is no longer a problem with the blue-collar or lower classes of society, the so-called skinheads or neo-Nazis. It has become much more a problem with even higher, better-educated areas of society. I see that specifically in it the increase in quality of the anti-Semitic letters and e-mails or faxes we receive. Years ago, we had letters coming in anonymously telling us all the nice things that Jews should know or figure out when they live in this country and face anti-Semitism. Now we receive letters with written names and addresses (and those addresses and names are the correct addresses and names of the people who wrote the letters), which more and more often have Ph.D. titles, professor titles, or show us that they are previously retired professors, bank directors, or lawyers. I am not talking about blank and stupid anti-Semitic letters that say “We forgot to gas you,” or “You Jews are greedy people.” I am talking about letters that reflect a very mature, thoughtful anti-Semitism that is hidden in between the lines. This is a rise in quality. Six to seven years ago, you could see from the handwriting or the style of the letters that they came from an older generation. I would say sixty or older. Today, the letters we are getting, specifically the e-mails that are coming in, are letters from younger people, usually between twenty and thirty-five. So we have a shift in terms of the quality of that anti-Semitism. It is not so much the older generation, but rather the younger generation. One of the stereotypes that was very often heard in 1989 and during the time of the reunification was that anti-Semitism was a sickness of East Germany. The statistics and experience clearly show us that it is actually the opposite is true. There are fewer people in East Germany that are anti-Semitic than people in West Germany. It was a West German sickness that was spread over the country. Certainly, there were stray problems

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Global Neighborhoods with youth movements and work in East Germany, but a lot of their structure or infrastructure was taken away because of lack of money and other problems. This meant that youth unemployment was high, and racist Germans exploited this problem to articulate their anti-Semitic propaganda. In terms of the security, the situation has changed a lot since 9/11 because it is no longer only a right-wing neoNazi movement that is feeding anti-Semitic stereotypes. It has also been—in the time of the second Intifada—left-wing anti-Semitism that started after the Six Days’ War, when Israel changed roles for the first time with the Palestinians and other Arab neighbor countries. When I talk about changing roles, I mean David and Goliath. Israel was no longer David. It started to become Goliath, which all of a sudden changed the situation. Even the German left-wing groups started to become anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic in some areas. Since 9/11, the situation changed even more when these right-wing neo-Nazi groups started cooperating with Islamist groups in Germany. It never actually occurred to security specialists that this could happen, because Islamists are naturally one of the target groups of right-wing neo-Nazis, who believe in the German people and nation cleansed of Jews and Muslims. This has changed. I don’t think this is a vital, long-lasting coalition. It is a short coalition, lasting only as long as they can successfully fight the Jewish minority, to use their own terms. Once they settle this problem, I think this coalition will split, and they will start fighting each other again. This has changed the security situation we face a lot. Even second-tier representatives have to be protected. For the last ten to twenty years, we have had high levels of protection for Jewish institutions and sites. I am not telling you secrets, but I am telling you that out of the eighty-nine Jewish communities today, only five are highly protected. The vast majority of other Jewish communities have very few security measures, if any at all. This includes protection and security in terms of building and technical security and protection, which means guard and manpower protection. Thank god, nothing has happened so far, but we are very much concerned about the situation because the communities are not able to pay for it by themselves. Of course, you know what the financial situation of these communities looks like: small, with a very little amount of money. For the services they have to provide, they

Berlin’s Jewish Quarter rely on state funding. It is not federal money, but state government money that goes into Jewish communities and keeps them at the level of protection where they are right now. It’s less than they need, since a vast majority of immigrants since 1989 are from states in the former Soviet Union. Since then, the number of Jews, for example, has almost tripled. After 1989, the numbers have been stable, over twenty-six thousand to thirty thousand have registered with the Jewish Council. Today we have around one hundred and five thousand members in our communities. The difference is immigration from the former Soviet Union, which brings us a lot of challenges and problems in terms of integrating those people, not only into Jewish society, but also into the non-Jewish society. Language problems, work problems, you name it, it is there. First of all, the position of the Central Council is very simple: We are saying we live in the German country; we consider ourselves (at least the vast majority) as people who are part of society, as most of us are citizens of the German state. This means that German security forces are responsible for providing security for the Jewish minority inside the country, as they are for all citizens. We have become perfectly aware that the German security forces are not able to meet our security needs and requests. Certainly they have not been able to meet the security necessity after 9/11. We see this in various situations. We pray every single day that nothing is going to happen, and, when we are not praying, we are trying to secure ourselves. This means that some of the communities that are able to do so have employed or trained their own security guards. There is no question that the police or other state forces can secure only the outside of buildings, and inside we have to do it on our own. But as I said before, most communities are not in a financial situation where they can afford such a measure of protection inside. Those who can are doing it. The council is doing it. . . . The Israeli security and defense forces are cooperating, they are offering their cooperation to all Jewish communities in the diaspora, to develop their own security measures, to provide training, education, services, and going as far as they can while acting in a foreign and sovereign country. We meet and try to participate in these offerings as far as we can, accepting that we are living in a foreign country and that the Israeli forces are foreign diplomats or representatives helping implement these

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Global Neighborhoods measures. It is a two-way street, which means that if we receive warnings or we have knowledge about events, we will give them to our Israeli counterparts, friends, colleagues, neighbors, or brothers and sisters to make sure that at least one capable security institution gets a full picture of what is going on. Preventative measures have become the most important issue. If we could not figure out or collect information about what is going on, we would be totally unable to have any serious security measures, because if you are put in a situation where you can only react, you have lost already. As much as I trust these young (I would not say “kids,” but most of them are kids) soldiers who are very capable of fighting a desert war, I think they are incapable of dealing with the daily work of a security guard in a Jewish community in Germany. And if you talk to some of the community members, you will hear a lot of criticism, not of what they do, but of how they do it. With paramilitaries who are trying to take over, you have much more covert security problems where you have to use your instincts, be very careful of certain signals that you might or might not receive, depending on how sensitive you are, and you have to deal with people who are highly disturbed by the possibility of attack or as a result of messages they are getting from the daily newspaper. Even in the protected island of Germany, it could happen that you are sitting next to a mail bomb or in front of a guy with explosives all over his body who is trying to get into a synagogue. Before 9/11, those things were totally out of the question in a country like this. All of the sudden, people saw 9/11, and now comes the most disturbing question for me. As such, 9/11 was not the point. It’s when people realize that terrorist attacks could happen to them, too. . . . People have finally figured out that Berlin is no longer a protected island; something has changed. People can become a target. Some of the non-Jewish Germans think that the Muslims are not going to do anything in Germany because Germany is a so-called European safe haven where they can live. However, German security forces have made a lot of effort to make sure that incidents that might have occurred did not. We have had bomb threats for the first time in German train stations during the last six to seven months. People realize that 9/11 could also be repeated in Germany. Ordinary Germans, of course, think they are going after Jews, Israel, and not against Germans.

Berlin’s Jewish Quarter The Jewish community in Germany has always been in a specific situation because of the Shoah, 1933–1945, and because of what happened here, but, you know, I went to Sweden six years ago, and even there the synagogues were [being] protected. When I was traveling throughout the United States back and forth, before I worked for this Jewish institution, before 9/11, Jewish communities, let’s say in the Midwest, there was no security. You could go into the synagogue. This is something we were used to only in Israel and in some areas of Germany. The story in Germany is that it was because of the neo-Nazis, and the ridiculous thing about that is that you have a higher security risk in France, not because of neo-Nazis, but because of some Muslim violent minorities. . . . Let me return again to the Israeli young adults who are trying to protect and secure Jewish sites. I don’t know whether they are overreacting on all of these issues. I am not saying that they are overreacting, I am, of course, very sensitive to security measures because of the nature of my job. I am now offering seminars to my communities on how to protect themselves, not to tell them how to work with a group of twenty Israelis to protect the community, but what can they do with their own resources, how can you get eyes and ears in the back of your head, how to figure out what is happening, how you can make sure that lack of security that you have can be closed by very simple and easy measures. Nobody thought about this, years ago. . . . Don’t think of someone who is Orthodox and can easily be identified as a Jew. I would not be identified as a Jew unless I told someone. I look like any ordinary German. Nobody would think of me as anything special. And I am hated, discriminated against, and could be violated or killed or whatever because I am Jewish in this country. I am not trying to exaggerate anything. One thing that I must also admit is that when you speak to me about my point of view and on anti-Semitism and all of those questions, certainly you have to take into consideration that I am a person sitting in the hot spot, which means what I discover and experience in terms of the various questions and issues cannot be generalized for the average German. The Jew who does not show the world that he is Jewish and whose name does not sound Jewish, that person will never speak up about an anti-Semitic event, which I have to do for various reasons, and I think we should all do.

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Global Neighborhoods Taking that in consideration, I had a seminar just two days ago on anti-Semitism, a seminar for my Jewish staff members and for the board members of the communities. What I am figuring out is that you have more public anti-Semitism—which I am not anxious about because outspoken is much better than behind closed doors. But, on the other hand, you have to ask, “How do my fellow Jews react to this?” The average Jew shuts his ears, mouth, closes his eyes, tries to hide, and says, “Okay, I have not heard that.” I want to give them the feeling that just the opposite is what is the right thing to do. Fight against it; argue with those people. I don’t need laws that prohibit antiSemitism because it is not worth the paper it is written on. What I need is people who will stand up and fight against it. And I am not here to wait until my neighbor stands to fight against it. I have to do it myself. That’s why I try to emphasize this to my people who are also in other communities. Don’t look at anti-Semitism as the exclusive issue that Jews have to address. I, as a Jew, should stand up if a gay, lesbian, or handicapped person is discriminated against because this type of discrimination is the first step. Today, it might be a colored person or a foreigner and tomorrow it could be a Jew again. This is a mechanism that people ought to be warned against, even inside the Jewish community. It is something that is very common in the United States. For example, African American groups have coalitions with Jewish institutions and Muslim institutions to fight for their various rights in terms of how they blame the state for this and that and how they set up institutions to work together. This is totally unheard of in Germany so far. For example, I am trying to promote—not because I love them, I have issues with some of them—having Muslim friends. I know we have common interests on various issues, for example, the clipping of young boys and the question of Arabic/kosher slaughters, the scarf, the discussion we have in Germany about whether Muslim women teachers are allowed to wear scarves while they are practicing their school supervision. I have Jewish people saying that this issue is just for the Muslims, we don’t need to take action on this. I told them that today is the Muslims, tomorrow it will be the Jews. If it is a Jewish Orthodox teacher who is teaching in a public school, he will not be allowed to wear whatever style he has to due to religious requirements. So think further on. Besides that, if we fight specific coalition projects where we can cooperate with


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other minorities, we can establish trust bridges, which would help whenever we have decisions to make for which we need their support. About three weeks ago, I thought this would not happen to me, and then it happened again. I had a colleague of mine, a journalist, telling me, “Kramer, congratulations. Last week we had this wonderful dinner with your ambassador.” I was like oops, okay. I said, “What ambassador are you talking about?” “Oh, the Israeli ambassador. You remember, we were sitting with him.” I say, “Oh yes. It is interesting. He is my ambassador. I appreciate him very much, he is a very nice guy. But listen, I am German; I was born in Germany, raised in Germany; I have no other citizenship. So I don’t think he is my ambassador. But anyway, if you see it that way, then that’s it.” Now more often than not, Jews are considered Israelis. So whatever is going on in the Middle East becomes something that we have immediately to justify or at least somehow sanction, which means dealing with people who say “You Jews should take care of your government” or “What you guys are doing there?” Anti-Semitism in Germany is certainly not a state-driven issue. Anti-Semitism is an individual issue. You have certain groups, like politicians, with anti-Semitic rhetoric in any kind of party—Liberal, Social Democrats, Conservatives, and the Greens. The Greens, for example, during the European election campaigns just had a poster where they had some really anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda. Before they posted it nationwide, they stopped and pulled it back and wrote us a letter of apology. We did not even see the poster before that. So we got the apology before we could even complain. That was really nice. We have these phenomena all over. This is certainly not state organized, but you find it almost everywhere in the state. Again, as I said before, it is no longer an issue with the blue-collar or lower class. It goes all the way up to the highest ranks. I am concerned that something is wrong, because the quiet majority is not raising the issue.

The Global Engendering of the Local Here, in a number of ways, we see how the local is engendered by the global because of the global’s interventions in the production of the local. In the post-Holocaust history of Scheunenviertel, the local

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has depended on the global, especially to protect itself while enjoying some respect from mainstream society. The protection of Berlin Jews during the post-Holocaust period depended a great deal not just on American Jewish organizations, but also the state of Israel, which monitored the situation, helped financially and with logistics, and kept the whole world aware of the continuing plight of East German Jews under the Communist regime. The security question shows how globality implodes inside locality and unveils an aspect of the relations of the community with the civilian police force of the city and state. The city pays the policemen who protect the Jewish sites, but the Israel connection is present through the Jewish guards who have offered their services and had acquired their experiences from their military service in Israel, and through the cooperation of the Israeli intelligence services with the local community. Locally, as well as globally, the security situation changed dramatically in the Berlin Jewish quarter after 9/11 in conjunction with some notable changes in German anti-Semitism explained by the informant, including new class and political allegiances and allegiances with the worldwide Islamist movement. Among these is the changed perception of Jews who are German citizens and as such entitled to the protection of the German state. Increasingly, they have been identified as Israelis, not Germans, in a striking instance of the ways in which global affiliations can be seen to trump national identities, in this case requiring increased emphasis on the security arrangements that the Jewish community and the Israeli security forces can jointly provide. The security issue sheds light on the global governance of these global neighborhoods. Security protection ties the neighborhood to other sites, contributes to the understanding of the problem at the transglobal level, and recalibrates the local place on the basis of global output. In this sense, transglobal security is a mechanism used by the network of sites to reinforce the protection of each participating unit.

Chapter 4

London’s Jewish Neighborhoods Nodes of Global Networks

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s we have just seen, global neighborhoods have their own ways of behaving as units of global networks as they constitute and feed the transglobal urban circuit. As we will now see, this explains why even when they are located in the same metropolis and participate in the same sets of relations with the homeland and other overseas sites, they develop different modes of being in the world. Therefore, it comes as no surprise to find two Jewish neighborhoods in London—Stamford Hill and Golders Green—with their own distinct issues and different histories of inscription in the network of transnational relations that links them to each other and to the larger circuit. Focusing on these two Jewish neighborhoods allows an opportunity to analyze and discuss their distinct paths of global relations, their contribution to the globalization of the network of Jewish diasporic sites, and the effect of border-crossing practices on their internal organization and social cohesion. In the study of the microprocesses of globalization, it is important not simply to understand the transnational relations that are essential to the enactment of the network, but also how each unit is locally anchored and behaves in this mobile structure. It is obvious that global relations have become part of the identity of each global neighborhood, and are intrinsic elements of its modes of operation. Therefore, the focus of this chapter is to show and explain the different modalities that reflect the global identity of these London neighborhoods as a result of the transnational relations in which their residents are engaged. Unlike the historic Jewish quarter in Paris, Le Marais, which saw a portion of its Jewish population decimated during the Nazi occupation of France, only to be reconstituted again, and unlike Berlin’s Scheunenviertel, which permanently lost a significant amount of Jewish residents during and after the Holocaust, Stamford Hill in London emerged in the post–World War II era as a vibrant global Jewish enclave.1 61

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This neighborhood’s population was fed by Jews from Whitechapel, in London’s East End, who did not have much to return to after the war because the bombing by German military forces destroyed many of the homes in the area.2 Jews also migrated to other parts of the city, but most went to the Hackney Borough as a result of the housing restrictions imposed by their meager economic condition. It is no easy task to document the transformation of Stamford Hill into a Jewish community with a very visible population of Hasidic Jews, distinguishable from the rest of the community by their distinctive clothing, especially the men, who wear long black coats (kaftans) and circular black hats (shtreimels). We need to explain why Jews left their places of origin to come to Stamford Hill after the war, as well as to examine the history of various streams of Jewish migration, the characteristics of the various Jewish religious groups, and how extraterritorial marriage arrangements have contributed to both the in-migration and out-migration of members of the community. The diverse demographic composition and plurality of national origins within Stamford Hill’s Jewish community are the consequence of major world events—most notably, the end of World War II, which brought in former Whitechapel residents and some of those people who had fled from concentration camps, along with the independence of India, which caused the emigration of Indian Jews to the area. The independence of Yemen and the annexation of Aden also forced Jews from this former British colony to come to this area, while religious persecution in Iran after the collapse of the shah and in Iraq as the conflict between Iraq and Israel grew led some Jewish émigrés to seek asylum in London for security purposes. In addition, various Middle Eastern crises, from the Six Days’ War to the most recent Intifada, brought Israeli Jews to the area, and transnational marriage arrangements have contributed to the demographic strength of the Hasidic population in the neighborhood.3 Stamford Hill provides a social niche in which individuals who make up the various layers of national origin within the immigrant population have been able to commingle, interact, intermarry, and integrate to constitute distinct subethnic groups. Stamford Hill has not been the only recipient of the overflow of Jewish residents out of London’s East End4 and elsewhere. Golders Green has emerged as a competing Jewish community because of its more upscale status and tolerant religious atmosphere. The relationship between Golders Green and Stamford Hill very much resembles the interaction between the old Chinatown in downtown San Francisco with the new Chinatown in the Richmond District. One neighborhood feeds the growth of the other as a community through internal urban

London’s Jewish Neighborhoods

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migration. Such relations manifest themselves in many ways, such as when the residents of one locale establish businesses in the other. Ongoing relations between the communities tend to be bidirectional for the purposes of visiting family and friends, taking care of business, visiting specialists (medical doctors) and institutions (Reform, Orthodox, or Conservative synagogues). One community usually has a higher economic status because of the higher income attained by its residents and therefore attracts the elite, is newer than the other, and can be seen as uptown or suburban, while the other community is considered downtown or inner city. In order to truly understand internal urban migration, a distinction must be made between a community of necessity and a community of choice, which result in, respectively, migration by necessity and migration by choice. A community of necessity is formed by the migration of individuals who come because of persecution, displacement, political turmoil at home, or lack of employment. By and large, these tend to be working-class individuals who might relocate once their economic conditions have improved. If they want to continue to maintain their ethnic ties, they move out to form or strengthen a community of choice that corresponds to their social status; a new form of internal migration has thus begun. Over time, a community of choice may become a community of necessity for two important reasons: Members move out to form or join another community of choice with higher social status or, out of necessity, recent migrants move in. The three previously discussed Jewish communities in London illustrate this theory. At first, the historic Whitechapel community was a community of necessity, composed of mostly Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Then, the rich residents and others moved out (mostly after World War II) to form both Stamford Hill and Golders Green. Since then, certain Stamford Hill residents have been moving out to join the Golders Green Jewish community. The moving of successful residents out of a neighborhood does not mean a total break in ties with the old community. In fact, they maintain most of these ties by continuing their synagogue memberships, visiting families in the old neighborhood, and commuting for business purposes. These people also usually only move their residences, not their businesses.5 Earlier, this meant that some lived in Stamford Hill and operated businesses in Whitechapel; now, some live in Golders Green and operate businesses in Stamford Hill. For example, I was told by an older Jewish informant from Aden (now part of Yemen), who has been living in the neighborhood for thirty-six years, that in the past three decades, Orthodox Jews who have

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relocated to Golders Green routinely return to spend the Sabbath and attend synagogues in Stamford Hill. They take rooms in various hotels in Stamford Hill since they cannot drive during the Sabbath. Once there, they walk to local synagogues and return to Golders Green on Saturday evening or Sunday. They do so to maintain contact with the old congregation because of their attachment to a specific synagogue or their appreciation of the teaching and services of a certain rabbi.

Jewish Migrations to Stamford Hill Jewish migration from Whitechapel to Stamford Hill began at a slow pace in the period between the two world wars. Financially better-off immigrants sought residence outside of the East End ghetto as a sign of their success—a clear marker of their upward mobility—and a way to distance themselves from their poorer neighbors. According to David Mander, “Immigration in the 1930s laid the foundation of a strong Hassidic Jewish community in Stamford Hill and the creation of a number of religious organizations including the Lubavitch Foundation, established in 1959.”6 While there were Jews in Stamford Hill before World War II, the community was not robust enough to eclipse the East End community, which remained a major source of Jewish commercial activities for many years. World War II was a decisive factor that negatively affected the historic ghetto and propelled, on a large scale, the resettlement to Stamford Hill of members of the Whitechapel community and the influx of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe fleeing from pogroms. Indeed, Barry A Kosmin and Nigel Grizzard argue that “the Second World War and the Nazi bombing of the Docks, and their deliberate attacks on the civilian population of East London, led to a large scale depopulation of the primary Jewish settlement area in the East End. . . . The evacuation and the bombing accelerated the pace of Jewish emigration from the East End to Hackney, since returning servicemen and evacuees found their old homes destroyed.”7 In addition to the Ashkenazim who came during the Holocaust, after the war, Sephardic Jews from North Africa, Asia, and the Middle East also emigrated, for different reasons, to Stamford Hill, either individually or as a result of chain migration. In their study of the borough, Kosmin and Grizzard detail the process of Jewish migration to this site by focusing on synagogue formation and membership and note: the Persian and Bonkharan synagogue, founded in 1948, is comprised of a small number of families from Northern Iran,


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the Meshedi, the main Eastern Jewry synagogue, the Gan Eden (garden of Eden), was founded in 1955, and has a membership of Indians and others originating from Near Eastern and North African states. A number of families from the Adeni community, who came to Britain after the British government evacuated the colony in 1967 have also founded their own small congregations.8 The diversity of the sources of this new immigration to the area is also described by Gerry Black, who notes: the 1956 Hungarian uprising brought several hundred additional members for the orthodox Adath movement in Stamford Hill. The two to three thousand arrivals from India, Iraq, and Egypt and the small group of Adeni Jews who came following Yemen’s declaration of independence increased the membership of the comparatively small Sephardic community by 75 percent. There is a Persian and an Adeni synagogue in Stamford Hill. There has also been a fairly considerable inflow of Israelis since the 1970s.9 Migration from diverse original sites has led to the heterogeneity of the Jewish population in the neighborhood, most specifically in terms of religious affiliation. For example, Kosmin and Grizzard observe that “most of the major subgroupings can be identified by national origin. There is the basic German model of . . . the Adath Yisroel (Congregation of Israel). Another variant is the Litvak mitnagdim (Lithuanian). . . . There are six main Chassidic groups in Hackney: the Belz, Bobov, Gur, Lubavitch, Satmar, and Vishnitz.”10

Voices of the Residents While the studies previously cited have shed enormous light on the linear history of the neighborhood, what is missing are the fragmented accounts from the perspective of various individuals or subgroups that complement the macrohistorical picture. This microhistory is capable of showing the nooks and crannies of the process. It places human agency at the center of the deployment of this saga. Therefore, instead of concentrating on macrodemographic trends, I decided to enlist resident’s personal family histories of migration, presenting a representative sample of interviews that capture the experiences of various Jewish groups in

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Stamford Hill. Doing so makes available a more textured narrative of the formation of the community. Each informant tells the history of the neighborhood from his or her perspective, which, in some cases, gives a glimpse of the migration and resettlement experience of the group, as well. A Nonreligious Jewish Male at Stamford Hill Nonreligious Jews in the area are not always knowledgeable about the activities of religious Jews, especially the Hasidim. Those who attend different synagogues naturally form separate groups. They do so because they share the same cultural or religious background, and this is why their perspective of the history of the larger community may not always be in sync with the views of others. According to this selfdescribed nonreligious “old-timer”: Jews here have come from Eastern Europe, namely Russia, Germany, Poland, and so on. When they came to London, they went to the East End of London. That was before the war, and after the war those Jews came over here to the Stamford Hill, N-16 Area; and now some of them have moved up; they have gone to Finchley, Hendon, etcetera, and some of them have moved even further up. So that is the situation of Jews in the area. This area has a lot of religious Jews called the Hasidics. They are very religious people, I am told that there are twelve different groups of Hasidic Jews. I am Jewish, but I am not religious. One of the Hasidic sects, the main one, is called Lubavitch. They have a big building in Stamford Hill. They are the most modern and the least intolerant. They are more tolerant that the others; they are very nice people. A Male Jewish Immigrant Building Contractor from Yemen in Stamford Hill The migration from one’s country of origin to Stamford Hill is often mediated by a transitory stay in Israel. Sometimes all of the members of the family go to Israel first and then move to London. In other cases, the family splits, some going to Israel and others to London, with the possibility of family reunification at a later time. Thus, a pattern of Jewish migration from one Jewish settlement to another emerges. The reasons why some groups have migrated to Stamford Hill are provided by this informant:


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Originally, I am from Yemen. It used to be Aden [South Yemen today]. The North took over Aden, now it is one government. I came to London in 1970 from Israel. Many Jews came from Aden as well after the Six Days’ War in 1967. The military powers took us to the airport and from there, they gave us a choice: We could go to either London or Israel. Some of us went to Israel, especially those who were not in business. The majority of the business people went to England. The ones who came to London became British citizens and the others, Israeli citizens. Later, some of those Israelis came to London. In the country [England], I think the Adenite Jewish population is six to seven hundred, and in London there are about two hundred. Yemen used to have an Arab culture, and in Aden, there was a British culture. Aden used to be a British colony. I came here as a tourist from Israel and stayed. A Male Jewish Immigrant from Burma in Stamford Hill The Burmese Jewish community is a subgroup of the larger Sephardic community. While they maintain their own businesses and cultural activities in order to preserve their traditions, they mix and mingle with other Sephardim, since they attend the same synagogues. Israel has served as a transitory place of settlement for some members of this community, as it has for other groups. This Jewish immigrant from Burma said: A lot of Jews from other countries came to this neighborhood. My brother moved from here [Stamford Hill] to Golders Green. I was born in Burma, but my parents are from Baghdad, I mean Jewish and from Baghdad. My parents immigrated to Burma. There are a few, about two hundred, Jews from Burma here. The businesses here belong mostly to European Jews. We have our own rabbi. I belong to our synagogue. He is from Morocco, of the Sephardic rite. I am Sephardic. I lived in Israel before coming here. I have been there for holidays. I still have one brother there. My mother and father lived and died there because we immigrated to Israel when it became independent. I left Burma in 1950, spent two and a half years in Israel, and came here because one brother and sister were already here. The Orthodox Jews came to Stamford Hill one hundred years ago from Poland, Germany, and all of those places.

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Global Neighborhoods There are a lot of people from here who have migrated to Golders Green. It has been going on for some time. A lot of people from here have moved to Hendon, Golders Green, Edgware, and other places around. A lot of Orthodox Jews open synagogues in big houses—they have synagogues all over the neighborhood. We only have one. There was a time when the Jews had a problem in Hungary. Then you had quite a few Hungarian Jews coming here. Then Jews had some problems in Egypt, and then they came here too.

A Male Jewish Immigrant Store Owner from Morocco in Stamford Hill The Moroccan Jewish community in Stamford Hill is a distinct group that maintains an identity separate from other Jews. Like other groups, some of its members first went to Israel before emigrating to London. They have their own stores that attract both Moroccan and other customers and have their own synagogue and rabbi. Their relations with Sephardic Jews in France are stronger than their relations with those who came from former British colonies such as Aden or India, who actually live in their community. According to this Moroccan Jewish immigrant, This area is all Orthodox Jews and I am not Orthodox. I come from Morocco. I have been living in England for twelve years. After I left Morocco, I went to live in Israel. I left Morocco in 1963 for Israel, and twelve years ago I came here. My wife is from this area, originally from Aden. About ten percent of the Jewish population in this area is Moroccan. We have our own rabbis. I use the cellular telephone to communicate regularly with my family in Morocco and Israel. I do not use the Internet. A Male Jewish Real Estate Agent in Stamford Hill The independence of Israel attracted a large group of Ashkenazim who, for one reason or another, were unwilling to remain in Israel. Some residents of Stamford Hill are part of this migratory movement. Unhappy with the new situation in Israel and convinced that they might not be able to fulfill their dreams there, they resettled in London. This second-generation male immigrant informant who lives in Golders Green and commutes every day to his office in Stamford Hill reported that “in 1948, after the war, my grandpa, who is Polish, went to the Holy Land [Israel] and did not do well and then came over


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here. A lot of the members of the community are Polish, Hungarian, and even Lithuanian.” A Female Hasidic Teacher in Stamford Hill This very articulate Hasidic schoolteacher brings the dimension of gender to the study of globalized identity in the locale. Born a Sephardic Jew, she later became Hasidic when she married her husband, a Hasidic Jew from New York. Unlike the others already interviewed, her family had migrated directly from Morocco to Stamford Hill. She sees inter-Jewish marriage as a major component of the migration that sustains the demographic infrastructure of the community. I was born in August 1956. Some Moroccans were placed in yeshiva school in Israel in the sixties. My parents came here [Stamford Hill] then, and this was a different community, there were very few Hasidic Jews here at the time. The independence of Israel and Morocco were both factors that explain my parents’ migration to Britain. Unlike the others who went first to Israel, my parents came directly here from Morocco. We have our rabbi and synagogue. I no longer go there because I married a Hasidic boy. I am now Hasidic. Most Eastern and Western Europeans came here after World War II. They were refugees. (We already had Spanish and Portuguese here as the oldest Jewish community in existence, since the time of Queen Mary the First.) They were fleeing the Nazis. They went to the East End, Whitechapel, and then moved on. And the other Jewish communities came, too, like the Indian community, which also came post–World War II, after Israel got its independence, and formed a lot of Jewish communities around here. The Iraqis and Moroccans also came then. The Iranians all came here for the same reason: the collapse of the Shah. The situation in Iran began to feel very uncomfortable for them. The Yemenites are actually very new as an addition to our community. They were brought out of Yemen probably in the late 1970s. I think that there are two schools of thought on finding a partner. One says that it is better to be with someone you know and marry your neighbor. The other says that if you know someone too well because he is your neighbor, then he cannot be good for you, and if you meet an outsider, study him, and see no problem, then he could be the best for you. In my case,

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Global Neighborhoods my future husband was my neighbor. He was studying right next door. In most cases, it is someone from the same community. For example, you would be with someone from Israel, if he belongs to your community. You could take someone from America, but only if you both belong to Satmar, so it will be someone you recognize. Even though someone is all the way in New York, his home will be identical because Jews identify more with our culture than with the country we live in. If you transpose two people in two different places in the world, they will always have these characteristics in common.

A Retired Male Ashkenazi Jew in Stamford Hill The history of Jewish migration from Whitechapel to Stamford Hill is recounted by this septuagenarian, who took part in this transition. He grew up in Whitechapel and, like so many compatriots after World War II, he resettled in the newly formed Jewish neighborhood of Stamford Hill. He provided ample details on various factors that contributed to its formation and growth. Before the war the vast majority of Jewish people (three hundred thousand) lived in the East End, very close together. It was an extremely close-knit community. I can just about remember it. The major factor that forced a number of Jews out was the poor living conditions; people lived so close to each other in the poorer flats. The economy was bad for everybody at the time, especially the many Jewish people who worked in the clothing industry, which were more or less sweatshops. It was terrible being in those factories seven days a week. Even I, in my younger days, worked in not quite as bad conditions, but pretty bad, from 8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M., six days a week. I can remember those days. Then the war came, and that helped us economically to some extent, and the Jews slowly began to migrate toward Hackney and Stamford Hill, which became a quite popular area for Jews. Eventually, some went to Northwest London: Hendon, Golders Green. That now has the largest Jewish population in London. They came from Whitechapel via Hackney. Not too many could move to Stamford Hill right away because of the cost. So Hackney was the first stopping point, then Stamford Hill, then Northwest London. Many of those who went to Golders Green came via here [Stamford Hill] for economic reasons, like the high cost of property. The exodus

London’s Jewish Neighborhoods from East London began soon after the war. So we can say by 1945 it began and by 1955 it had grown quite large. Bombing was a factor in the migration. There was a lot of heavy bombing in East London; the East side was badly [heavily] bombed. This happened particularly in Hackney, where I lived as a young boy. I can remember the war. I am quite happy here [in Stamford Hill] because all of the shops are here, everything is here, and the parks are very nice. And it’s easy to get to Central London. The neighborhood became very heavily populated with Jews from the 1950s on. Over the years, the type of Jews who have lived here has changed. There were middle-of-the-road Jews who were predominantly the majority. Now a lot of those have died or moved away and have been replaced by Orthodox Jews. They are probably the most influential and largest group of Jews living here. The period of the biggest change of the population type was between 1945 and 1975. Over the last ten to fifteen years there has also been a rather rapid growth with those Jews [Orthodox] coming here in large numbers. The Orthodox Jews are the most visible because of their clothes and their beards. The synagogue which I used to belong to, which is around the corner, used to have a thousand people in its congregation every Saturday. Now it does not even exist anymore. It has been purchased by the Orthodox community and we only have one small room. Among the people who live here, there are quite a number of them from Israel, but I think that the majority are English and European. There are quite a few Orthodox who come here to get married, and they keep in contact with other Orthodox communities in Europe: Amsterdam, Belgium, and pockets in Antwerp and Israel, as well. They keep in touch with each other and intermarry. There are marriage agency introductions just as there were fifteen hundred years ago in Europe. This is the way marriage is arranged in such places. They are introduced. Kosher meat is killed here. They have their own abattoir [slaughter house], kosher food. Where the animals originate from, I don’t know. I think it’s well organized here, and there are enough Orthodox Jews here to have it available here. The Sephardic community is small because it is composed of Yemenites, individuals from Spain, Iraq, Portugal, and other Arab countries. They came after the Six Days’ War in large

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Global Neighborhoods numbers. A lot went to Israel. A lot of Iraqi Jews live in Israel. A larger number of Sephardic Jews went to Israel. There is a small minority here. There is a liberal Sephardic community here; they live side by side with the Orthodox. The Orthodox choose to live here and are not moving in large numbers to Golders Green because they have the facilities that they need here. There is an Orthodox community in Golders Green, also. They are very happy. The trouble is that it will grow more and, in my view, there is simply not enough housing. There are not many non-Orthodox here. Most of them are older people. The young Orthodox have come here, but the young non-Orthodox don’t. They go elsewhere—they go to further north than Golders Green. It is greener and cheaper, and that’s where the community is now going.

A Non-Jewish Englishman and World War II Veteran in Stamford Hill This learned gentleman, who has been living in Stamford Hill for more than seventy years, gave three reasons why Jews have migrated to the area. These include the lower price of housing in comparison with other districts in London, the push factor created by pogroms in Eastern Europe and Nazi persecution, and eventual interurban migration. This mode of interpretation is fairly standard in the historiography of the community. While the other informants spoke of their own experiences and those of their groups, this outsider reflected on his observations of the neighborhood and its transformation from a quasi-British and Irish neighborhood to a Jewish stronghold over the past fifty years. After the war, property prices were much lower, and people bought up real estate around here. The land is slightly cheaper here than in Golders Green or Kensington. Also, a lot of Hasidim, originally from Eastern Europe, came during the war. They came here fleeing from the Nazis and the Russian pogroms and ended up in the East End of London. Then they moved over to places like this [Stamford Hill]. That’s the main migration. They have always been on the move—you always get that. The movement to Stamford Hill was not abrupt, but a process that took many years to evolve. The transformation of Stamford Hill into a predominantly Hasidic Jewish neighborhood also took many years to accomplish. Both processes were part of global phenomena because


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they both resulted from different events that occurred elsewhere, events that led people to seek solace in Britain. The transnational ties that they maintain with family members in these foreign lands constitute a magnet of attraction for would-be migrants. What one learns from the history of Jewish migration from Whitechapel to Stamford Hill and from Stamford Hill to Golders Green is that the migration of people does not necessarily mean the migration of businesses because the clientele, business name, and line of business may not be reproduced successfully elsewhere. So some individuals have moved away and still maintain their businesses in the area. As they age, the second generation may decide whether or not to pursue these lines of activities or at least in this location. In other words, the end of residence does not correspond to the end of business in the area. As Andrew Saint and Gillian Darly wrote in reference to Whitechapel, “the Jews had mainly departed, but the streets were full of their businesses.”11 One cannot understand the history of Stamford Hill without unveiling its links to the East End or analyzing its relations with Golders Green. In other words, Stamford Hill is located between Whitechapel, which had once fed it with its population, and Golders Green, which today is often the final destination of some of its residents.

Golders Green Jewish Immigration The Stamford Hill and Golders Green Jewish communities are separated by geographical location and also by social class. By and large, one is richer (Golders Green) than the other (Stamford Hill). In essence, one may venture to say that one is the extension of the other. This is seen most specifically with families in which the member who lives in Golders Green is often young, industrious, and liberal, while the other members who live in Stamford Hill are often old, poor, and conservative. The history of Jewish immigration to Golders Green is briefly recounted by Kosmin and Grizzard when they note that: Hackney, which suffered a social and economic decline in the 1950s and 1960s, became a new primary settlement area for immigrants, particularly West Indians, but also Cypriots, and some Eastern and Chassidic Jews. The Eastern Jews quickly followed to the previous Ashkenazi migration pattern and in the late 1960s, they began to move on towards North-West London, particularly Golders Green. . . . Whereas in the sixties

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Global Neighborhoods the trend was for whole families to leave the area for the outer suburbs, in the last few years the tendency has been towards many young people leaving, and then, only when they marry and have to establish a new home.12

To record the history of Jewish migration to Golders Green, I interviewed two middle-aged women who hold managerial positions at Jewish institutions there and a Jewish woman in her late twenties who serves as the assistant manager at the Jewish care facility. One informant had the following to say: Which countries do the Jews come from? Prior to the Holocaust, around 1890, predominantly Eastern Europe and Poland. The majority came because of pogroms that lasted until the Second World War. However, there is also a large group of people who came during the Second World War to this area. They came from any of the following countries: Germany, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, all of the countries that were affected by the Holocaust. But the majority is from Eastern Europe, and that’s why their first stop was not here, but the East End. A more precise account of the phases of Jewish migration to Golders Green is provided by a second informant who had been doing some oral history of the area on her own, as the chief manager of the Jewish care facility. By the 1920s, the Jews started coming to Golders Green from the West End. By the early 1930s, the better-off Jews came in from Berlin and Germany, and then the Second World War happened. The Second World War stopped the immigration because of the evacuation. Post–Second World War, the better-off ones came from the East End, Hackney, or Golders Green. This is a better-off area, a middle-class area. You have your accountants, lawyers, and businessmen in this area. You can see the history of Golders Green from the synagogues. The United Synagogues began pretty much around 1995, and the Reform Synagogue has been in the area for approximately seventeen years. You also have professionals who have come to live here; people from the East End went to Stamford Hill, Edmonton. By the late 1980s, they were better off and moved to places


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like Golders Green from Stamford Hill. The strict Orthodox migrated from Stamford Hill to Golders Green. The less Orthodox tended to move to Southgate. The young woman who was assistant manager at the Jewish Care at Golders Green assumed that the old people who frequent the center are a representative sample of the larger community and went on to give her opinion on the national origins of the guests. The food we serve here is what we call Ashkenazi Jewish food, which is European cooking. There is also Sephardic food, which is Middle Eastern. The majority of the members of the center are from Europe. We stick to European food; it is mainly roasted chicken, salmon, Vienna sausages, frankfurters, chicken soup, etcetera. The membership is a big mixture. The majority of them are from England, Russia, Poland, India and Turkey. I would say that maybe a third came here as a result of the Second World War. The majority came from Whitechapel. We did a project a few months ago where we asked: “Where were you born?” And every morning we gathered the people, for a whole week, and the majority put the East End of London (Whitechapel). About one hundred and twenty people frequent the center regularly. They are living in Golders Green, Edgware. We pick them up by bus and bring them here. A lot of them went to school together as children. An Israeli Immigrant in Golders Green A young adult Jewish male who works during the day at a kosher shop in Stamford Hill and at night as a security guard in Golders Green gives his assessment of the social integration of these two Jewish communities—what they have in common and what distinguishes them from one another: The community in Golders Green is bigger in number and is more liberal. They are Askenazi Jews, mostly from Eastern and Western Europe. A lot of younger Jews from Stamford Hill are moving to Golders Green because of the change in the times, because the very strict Orthodox system is something that, in my view, is changing. This generation is different because time has changed things so much from what they used to be.

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Global Neighborhoods The lifestyle in Golders Green is better in respect to food, houses; everything is better for Jews. The salaries are higher, the mentality of the Jews is different. I would rather live in Golders Green than in Stamford Hill. Ninety percent of Israelis who come to check out London, to stay here or to study, go to Golders Green or Stamford Hill because Stamford Hill stands more for tradition and Golders Green is more liberal and integrated with the locals. There are even non-Jews who come to eat in the restaurants. Sometimes here [Stamford Hill] you can go in a take-out place and the quality of the food is less than it is in Golders Green. Now people know that and go spend more money on food by driving to Golders Green and doing their shopping there. According to the Jewish religion, you are not allowed to drive on Saturday. A lot of religious Jews come to stay at the Kadima Hotel with their relatives. I know children who get married and go to Golders Green to find a more liberal way of life, a more right way of life for them, and now come here to visit their parents. This happens a lot, especially in the Lubavitch community. A lot of Lubavitch move from this area to Golders Green. I personally know dozens of couples that have recently gotten married, among them my own brother, and moved from here to Golders Green to live a better life.

Jewish Stamford Hill as Downtown The Stamford Hill enclave has the status of “downtown” for Jews living in satellite communities. It is a magnet that attracts them for certain activities. But what does “downtown” mean here? This “downtown” is not a carbon copy of the traditional “downtown” of the metropolis. It is a neighborhood where the Jewish population is visible through the concentration of Jewish families who live there, the cluster of Jewish businesses that it houses, and the handful of religious and social institutions implanted there. As many informants noted, the magnet also attracts people who come to visit parents and friends, those who do their shopping in this area because of the availability of kosher foods and religious objects, and those who come to attend synagogue services or use the facilities and access the services offered by Jewish institutions. The word “downtown” accents the predominance of businesses that sustain the flow of clientele daily. It is also in opposition to the concept “uptown” because, while it does not indicate that those who work there live there, it assumes that the quality of life for the


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residents is less desirable in contrast to those who live “uptown” or in the suburbs.

The Multinationalization of the Jewish Family Diasporization has caused the spread of the Jewish family in more than one country. Whatever the reasons for this dispersion (persecution, family reunification, migration, etc.), the end result is that many Jewish families in Stamford Hill and Golders Green have relatives (brothers, sisters, children, uncles, and aunts) living in other countries such as Israel, the United States, France, and Belgium. Individuals travel overseas to meet other members of the family or attend family reunions or events such as weddings. The transnational dynamic of these global neighborhoods is fed by the border-crossing practices that such family ties, communications, and travels entail. Family multinationalization is an intrinsic characteristic of global neighborhoods because it unveils a demographic component of their composition, projects the global orientation of these locales, and identifies actors that are engaged in cross-border practices. The multinationalization of the family brings with it a set of communication problems. In Stamford Hill, some parents, who emigrated from Eastern Europe are more fluent in Yiddish than in English, while their children are fluent in English and can barely speak Yiddish, and their grandchildren who live in Israel are more fluent in Hebrew than the other two languages. I have interviewed individuals with family members in South Africa, Israel, and Australia and in Argentina, France, Israel, and the United States. I even found a combination of Israel and Morocco. The most common scenario involves an individual having family in both Israel and the United States. When partners originate from different countries, it is a challenge for their children to keep up with the languages of both sides of the family: Yiddish among the assimilated Jews is a dying language. There are pockets that keep it going. But as it works, it goes down with the generations. For instance, my mother-in-law spoke Yiddish because she heard it in her home. She married a French Jew of Sephardic origin. He did not speak Yiddish; his family was Sephardic. The result is, my husband does not speak it because his parents did not speak it. I learned a bit because my father spoke it. He used it a little bit with my mother, enough for me

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Global Neighborhoods to hear it in the house. I can understand certain words, but my husband does not understand it; it is not used in our home, so my son does not know it. There are certain words, which have become part of the culture. Not in the Yiddish culture, but the mainstream English and American culture. “Nacht” started out as Yiddish, but now it is an acceptable English word. In New York, everybody uses that expression. And also “kosher.” If someone refers to something as being kosher, they are not talking only about food. These days, they are talking about something being legal, right. For example, one speaks of a document being kosher. I went onto the Internet, I put your name in there to see if you were kosher, if you were the person you told me you were before I would let you come to talk to my people.

Stamford Hill and Golders Green as Incubators of Global Flows These two Jewish neighborhoods have been sites that incubate global flows linking the neighborhoods to Israel and other diasporic sites. The expression of these flows has manifested itself in different modes at different times to symbolize different things. Such symbols, acts of loving kindness, modes of attachment to the homeland, and public forms of help have been deployed by members of these neighborhoods and have revived and fostered transnational relations. After World War II, the preoccupation of the community was with the longing for a Jewish state in Palestine and the eventual migration or return to the homeland there. Reporting on a meeting held in Golders Green on March 16, 1945, The Jewish Chronicle wrote, “the Palestine Question was of paramount importance for every Jew in this country, and so they had set up a Palestine Committee. . . . It was felt that it was very desirable to present a united Anglo-Jewish front on this question.”13 This form of transnational solidarity and support was needed to sustain momentum for the re-creation of Israel as an independent Jewish state. This was a clear example in which the diaspora was needed by the homeland for the creation of a state, in contrast to situations when the homeland is needed for the well-being and protection of the diaspora. This crusade for the homeland was also crucial in consolidating the ties between members of the neighborhood who were all working on the same project. It provided the common ground needed to maintain diaspora cohesiveness, build trust, and enhance a sense of belonging to the same group.


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The infrastructure that sustains the transnational process is also important to identify so that one may distinguish transitory forms of transnationalism from more permanent ones. Of course, the permanent ones need an infrastructure of support in order to sustain their long life. We find the materiality of these logistics in the acquisition of locales. For example, The Jewish Chronicle in its July 9, 1948, edition wrote, “Barclay House, the new premises of the Golders Green Zionist Society . . . was opened on Sunday.”14 Such sites constitute points of concentration for the expression of globality because the people there are collectively engaged in global acts. Such acts provide a point where the homeland and the diaspora can meet. It is not enough to say that the diaspora and homeland maintain transnational relations; one must identify the geographical sites where this actually happens. Temporary events established for the cause of Israel are also important to identify. One learns from The Jewish Chronicle of June 3, 1955, that “the Golders Green Synagogue Literary and Cultural Society held an Israel evening and Concert at the Joseph Freedman Hall last week.”15 These instantaneous events are undertaken to strengthen the link between the homeland and the neighborhood, but also always result in consolidating the links between the members of the group. Not all transnational linkages are of this general nature and formed from community to community. Some are from family to family or individual to individual, synagogue to synagogue, NGO (nongovernmental organization) to NGO, or business to business. For example, store owners contact other businesses in other countries to refurbish their stock of merchandise. Transnationalism can also be achieved through traveling businesses or business events that give an opportunity to showcase such products from other countries. The Jewish Chronicle of April 25, 1969, announced a secular event that took place in Golders Green, “a sneak preview of next year’s jewelry designs from Paris, Rome and Switzerland.”16 In this instance, transnational commerce was used to attract potential Jewish clients, using the neighborhood as a base of recruitment. Transnationalism is not just about the movement of bodies or goods, but also about the movement of ideas and images. For example, one can look at the various ways The Jewish Chronicle reported on the plight of Jews who were leaving for France from Morocco in the mid1950s, and on the experiences of the European Jewish minority in Mexico. The Jewish community in London was able to learn about other diasporic communities through the ethnic press and from direct radio broadcasts from Israel, but also through their own theatrical productions. For example, The Jewish Chronicle of February 16, 1951, reported

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that “the Stamford Hill Senior Club Dramatic Society presented ‘Home of the Brave,’ by Arthur Laurents, at the Rudolf Steiner Hall, N.W., on Sunday in aid of the Club building Fund. . . . The play deals with antiSemitism in the U.S. army.”17 The drama provided an avenue for the community to learn about the experiences of Jews in the United States. Also in terms of symbols that reinforce transnational ties, The Jewish Chronicle of March 25, 1955, wrote that “two marble tablets inscribed with the Prayer for the State of Israel, presented by a member of the Congregation, were consecrated at the Golders Green Synagogue during the morning service on Sabbath.”18 This religious gift is supposed to represent a permanent symbol and remind people of the ties that bind the congregation to the state of Israel. The presence of a distinguished foreign visitor was also a material element that could periodically sustain transnational relations. The following example is that of a rabbi who served as a link between the Golders Green community and a community of South African Jewry. The Jewish Chronicle of January 28, 1955, reported that “Rabbi M. Smith, from South Africa, was the guest of honour at a M’Lava Malka held last week by the Golders Green Mizrachi Society, at 8 West Health Drive. He gave a talk on the background and future of South African Jewry.”19 Rabbis are an important point of connection for transnationalism. As we have just seen, a visiting rabbi was able to inform others about his residential community. Rabbis are also part of the circulation of bodies that make sites viable as Jewish enclaves. After all, how Jewish can a neighborhood be without its own synagogue? The Jewish Chronicle of January 3, 1964, provides details of another form of corporeal mobility. This type of migration from one site to another thereby links disparate enclaves. According to the newspaper, “Rabbi Isaac Waserman was inducted on Sunday as the new Rav of the Stamford Hill Beth Hamedrash. . . . He was born in Lithuania but has spent much of his life time in Israel, where he studied for several years, and in France, where he was head of the Yeshiva at Aix-les-Bains for five years.”20 This example shows the pattern of migration from one Jewish site to another that contributes to the reinforcement of ties between enclaves and between enclaves and the homeland.

Neighborhoods as Global Nodes Due to their population history and composition, external relations, and transnational entanglements, the Jewish neighborhoods in London are global enclaves. They began their existence as such because they


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were peopled by Jews arriving from various countries in Europe and later by Jewish immigrants from India, Yemen, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Israel. They reproduce their global status by maintaining transnational relations with Jewish enclaves in various parts of the world for political, familial, religious, or commercial purposes. These transnational relations fragment the social landscape of the Jewish diaspora because each national grouping relates more naturally to their country of origin than to other locales. In fact, there is an evolution in the direction of transnational relations of these neighborhoods. While phone calls to countries of origin were intense when families tried to get their members out of Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and so on, once they had left, these transnational calls became less and less routine and are now made to other diasporic sites or to Israel, wherever members of the family may have resettled or relocated. Events in distant places are the mechanisms that cause the redirection of flows of transnational relations in these neighborhoods. The global status of a community manifests itself in the everyday life of its local integration. Jewish immigrants from the same country of origin tend to form social clubs for support and to reminisce about common experiences. These groups function to help those left behind socialize with compatriots and maintain their old culture and traditions, reinforcing the strength of the group inside the larger diasporic community. Thus, we find individuals in Stamford Hill who belong to the Association of Jewish Ex-Berliners or who have attended events organized by the Anglo-German Cultural Forum.21 These organizations are true nodes in the global network that helps define this unique cluster of locales.


Chapter 5


T

he Jewish quarter, like any ethnic neighborhood, has always had the double identity of serving as both a residential site and a business district. This is because of the inexpensive housing that attracts newcomers with meager means and the ethnic community that socializes them in the culture of the city. It is also because of the need to develop stores that cater to Jewish residents. This is the case in Jewish communities more than in many other diasporic communities because of dietary restrictions: The traditional kosher food necessary for the celebration of Jewish holy days cannot be easily found elsewhere. These two variables have led to ownership by the diasporic community of both places of residence and business locations in a dynamic that strengthens the position of both, because they each need the other to survive.

Diasporic Entrepreneurship and Globalization The emphasis in the study of immigrant businesses has been placed mostly on the ethnic aspect of the process, not so much on its diasporic dimension. In the ethnic perspective, one is concerned with job creation, capital formation, rotating credit association, agglomeration or enclave economies, the clientele of the shops, and the role of these businesses in the maintenance of the ethnic identity of the neighborhood.1 This literature has not explicitly invoked globalization as its focus of analysis, since its emphasis is on business practices and integration within the nation-state. However, it has not been silent about it either.2 The global aspect of the ethnic economy shows up in these analyses in terms of the homeland as a source of capital for some ethnic entrepreneurs, the origins of the inexpensive products purchased overseas and resold in the ethnic enclave, and the transnational businesses in which immigrants may be engaged.3 83

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Although these studies have not totally ignored global concerns, globalization theory has not been employed to explain the phenomenon of neighborhood businesses. Recent efforts influenced by the literature on transnational migration have paid more attention to the border-crossing practices of these businesses.4 What is missing is a rearticulation of the problem as a way to view these diasporic enterprises as cosmopolitan businesses that interface the local with the global and that constitute one pivotal node in the globalization of the neighborhood. This chapter analyzes the types of transnational relations entertained or forged by Jewish shops in Jewish quarters through the overseas products they purchase and resell in the neighborhood, the international tourist clientele they attract, and the real estate and transportation services they provide to extraterritorial or overseas clients or prospective immigrants. Here again, the concern is to explain how the local interfaces with the global in the production of a globalized locality. The shift from the ethnic to the diasporic dimension emphasizes the global identity of these enterprises and shows how these global operations are an important engine in producing the stability of the neighborhood as a diasporic community.

Residence and Businesses in Paris’s Jewish Quarter Over the years, as we have seen, the demographics of the Paris Jewish quarter have changed because of the different origins of various streams of the immigrant population. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries up until World War II, the majority of the population was Ashkenazim fleeing various pogroms in Eastern and Central Europe. In the past forty years, the quarter has become dominated by North African Sephardim fleeing political persecution after the independence of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. For many years, Yiddish was the lingua franca of the community. Now it has been replaced by Judeo-Arabic. While immigration is a factor that contributes to the reproduction of the community, it must also be said that the kosher stores and synagogues are also a factor in its survival. As we have noted, a number of the people who maintain the vitality of the community are not residents, but rather are those who come back regularly to buy kosher foods or attend synagogue services. They patronize these places, maintain contacts with former neighbors, and therefore link their new satellite communities to this informal chronopolis that continues to serve as the headquarters of ethnic and religious associations.


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There are many visible signs of change in the Jewish community. Its spatial parameters have shrunk, and it no longer includes territory in the Third Arrondissement. It has been reduced to just a few blocks of housing along the Rue des Rosiers between Rue Vieille du Temple and Rue Mahler and Rue du Roi de Sicile and Rue des FrancsBourgeois. One merchant I spoke to contrasted what the site looked like before and after the war. “It was a very commercial neighborhood before the Germans destroyed all of that. You had things that were extraordinary, some little Jewish grocery stores, bakeries, matzo bread that was made on site. Now matzo bread is made in a factory.” The continuing encroachment of the gay community on the Jewish quarter is a matter of concern for some community members, who are afraid that gentrification will lead to more real estate speculation, raise the cost of housing, and force them out of their ethnic niche. These changes are deplored not only by ethnic Jews, but also by resident Gentiles. One described the changes in the community as follows: When I returned from the Algerian War, I noticed some changes in the neighborhood, including the progressive disappearance of small popular food stores which were replaced by other things. Goldenberg [the owner of the Goldenberg Restaurant] was originally a small butcher [charcutier]. He left bullet traces on the wall [to remind people of the terrorist attack on the restaurant in 1982]. He was such a character. He received everybody, cardinals, bishops, politicians, leftists, rightists. He had employees who were Arab. He was everybody’s friend. An Ashkenazi Jewish businessman who lives and owns a textile store in the vicinity of the quarter reflects with sadness on the change in manufacturing that has contributed to the transformation of the neighborhood into a tourist site: Today, the manufacturing business is less important than it used to be. It’s not that there are fewer clients. It’s that we noticed that the consumption has changed. The money that was previously allocated to textiles now goes toward mobile phones, computers, holidays, recreation, reading. Today the mobile phone is thoroughly integrated into the community’s reasonable consumption. Today there are phone calls for every little thing, “I’m coming over,” and we chat for hours on the phone. There is a special deal that is being proposed, I think that it’s orange [Orange is the name of the company/France

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Global Neighborhoods Telecom], and you can talk from 9:00 P.M. until midnight and it’s free. Today, we chit-chat, whereas, back in the day, when you think about it, when you picked up the telephone, it was always serious. Today when you talk on the mobile [phone]: “Where are you. I’m coming. I will be late.” Now for any little thing one talks on the phone.

The causes of and forms that gentrification has taken are explained by the owner and manager of a men’s clothing store that has been in business since the end of World War II. This Ashkenazi old-timer said: It’s becoming a visit-oriented neighborhood. The neighborhood today, in the minds of certain people, has become a museum neighborhood. We are in the Marais: There is the Picasso museum, the Hotel Untel, and the Jewish neighborhood as a museum. It’s a museumlike, a place to stroll around. There are a lot of Jews who left this neighborhood to go live in other parts of Paris, and it’s now a new generation of people who come to live here. They are called the bohemian bourgeois [the bo-bo] and they want to make an imprint on this neighborhood to make it more touristic, very intellectual. The bo-boes go against the big businesses [commerces de gros]. Now there is fighting among the bo-boes and the corner stores. The bo-boes would like them to be arts-and-crafts businesses, luxury ones. For the bo-boes, local business is a nuisance and does not suit them. While the migration of residents to the suburbs has been ongoing, there have also been a few cases of return or reverse migration to the quarter in order to reconnect emotionally with the community, find inexpensive housing, reunite with family, or simply because of old age. One such individual said that “we lived here in 1942. There was a big wave of arrests in 1942, and entire buildings were emptied. Maybe 10 percent were able to escape. In 1942, we escaped into the countryside. My grandparents were deported. I returned to the neighborhood twenty years ago. My daughter married the pastry chef, and I came to help them.” Some of these changes can be seen in the transformation of the ownership of businesses. Commercial gentrification goes hand in hand with demographic gentrification. In the view of a store manager informant, “on Fridays, because of the Sabbath, there are many people who come to shop. The neighborhood has changed a lot. Some small


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shops were bought by clothing stores. This strip [of shops] is protected because of the Sabbath observance. That is why the clothing store has more difficulty surviving.” One old-timer agreed that proprietorship was changing in the quarter and becoming more diverse, which he did not view as necessarily a good thing: People who work in the Jewish stores and shops are a very mixed group. If one looks at the textile industry, ninety-five percent are Jewish for textile in bulk; while fashion clothing stores on the Rue des Rosiers are not necessarily Jewish. There is a store on the Rue Turène, across from here, it’s managed by a Maghrebi—a North African. A little further up, a Corsican and an Armenian manage stores. The newspaper vendors, real estate agencies, are often Catholic people. The Rue des Rosiers used to be 100 percent Jewish. Today, only a few shopkeepers remain, so it’s a neighborhood which is starting to become banal. Another major area in which change is visible is in the ethnic background of employees. During the prewar years, these stores furnished jobs to the incoming poor from Eastern Europe, who were mostly of Jewish origin. They got jobs because they could speak Yiddish, and they created a sense of cultural comfort. Now, the majority of store employees tend to be non-Jewish. A neighborhood resident put it this way: The employees are divided into Ashkenazi and Sephardic. There are also a lot of non-Jews. This includes Catholic Poles, a few North Africans, as well as some from sub-Saharan Africa. Stores use a lot of non-Jews because they are cheaper to employ and are hard workers. They are not always fair with their employees. Some are fair, but others look like “enslavers” [négriers] sometimes. They pay partly under the table. Others use people who don’t have their legal papers and are a little lost. I’ve seen things that are not very moral. And for the Sabbath, one needs someone do the cleaning, take care of the lights. This person cannot be a Jew. There are some who open their shops on Saturdays, and the employees who are not Jewish work. Even Goldenberg has very few Jewish employees, I think. There are a few Moroccans, Tunisians . . . strangely, the favorite cleaning lady in the synagogue is Muslim.

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A similar observation made by a Sephardic Jew was offered pertaining to goyim (Gentile) employees in Jewish-owned stores. She said that “the store employees are not necessarily Jewish. If the store is strictly kosher, there only needs to be a representative of the Beth Din to enforce the kashrut [Jewish dietary laws]. The employees are not Jewish. In the majority of stores they are Muslim. In terms of ethnicity, we have everything.” Another informant confirmed the non-Jewish background of employees: “The people who work here are Pakistanis. In all of the bakeries, it’s Arabs. Here there is a big grocery store and the employees are African or Arab, because they are paid less. With a Jewish employer, they cannot get what they want.” The shrinking number of neighborhood stores that specifically cater to the Jewish population was observed by a non-Jewish resident: “The problem of the Rue des Rosiers is that, ten years ago, there were thirteen butchers, and now there are only four. It’s a problem of butcher shops disappearing. It is those little stores that constitute the heart of the Jewish quarter. If you have a neighborhood where there are only bars, that’s it. It’s a décor. The folkways, under the assault of modernity, have changed and are slowly dying off.” One manifestation of these changes is a new Jewish multiculturalism that pervades in the quarter, which can be seen through an analysis of store contents. Different nationalities establish stores to sustain their own traditions. Even if immigrants subscribe to the same faith, culinary traditions vary from one homeland to another. New acculturation and syncretism occur in the quarter as different kinds of Jews learn and borrow cultural features from each other or even marry each other. A Sephardic resident offered this ethnic observation: Today there are more so-called Sephardic stores than Ashkenazi ones. Some of the Ashkenazim have progressively left, and the Sephardim have greater number and come from multiple traditions. We have the Moroccans, Tunisians, and Algerians, and each has installed his own store and represents his own community. Now in the stores, one finds a little of everything and the Ashkenazi/Sephardic distinction is becoming blurred. At weddings, one finds more and more Ashkenazi/Sephardic unions. Those stores have become stores of synthesis—a mix in the same store of Ashkenazi things and Sephardic things. A few stores have existed for many years under the same family manager and owner. For example, one old-timer referred to his own store when he said:


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It cannot be said that they [those who came back from concentration camps] are the ones who own the stores. The people who owned stores [before World War II] sold them. The store where you are sitting is a store that was opened in 1904 by my mother-in-law, who came from Odessa, Russia. She arrived by way of Istanbul, Marseilles, Lyon. The whole family ended up in Paris. During the occupation, this store was managed by the Commissariat aux Questions Juives [the Commission on Jewish Affairs] and remained intact. Of course the store then was not what there is now. I am the one who made the changes when I married my wife in 1955. I tore down the walls. I made several transformations. The origin was the arrival of very well-known people in the Jewish world, like Trotsky. My mother-in-law had a bar. People would sit down and have a cup of tea, eat a piece of strudel, and it was the way to hang out among Jews. I didn’t have any difficulty locating or recuperating the store after the war because I had never left it. My mother-in-law and my wife left the store in July. The liberation by the American and French soldiers was in August 24, 1944. There was a whole month when the store was closed. The entire neighborhood was like that. They recuperated their store. There was a poster on the entrance door that said “Jewish store—forbidden to Aryans.” If you were not Jewish, you could not enter. And during the whole month, there was a commissaire aux questions juives [Commission on Jewish affairs] who came to verify the accounts. He was the one who took care of the cash register. Commercial gentrification is selective. Only some stores are affected. Trade is protectionist in some market niches that have not been penetrated by Gentile merchants. For example, one female Jewish community organizer says “the food stores belong to us. But certain clothing stores, pret à porter [ready to wear], belong to other people.” When McDonald’s attempted to establish a fast-food restaurant on the Rue des Rosiers, the residents successfully defeated the move and protected the native restaurant industry. And religious gentrification is nonexistent because no Gentile church has been able to establish itself in the Jewish quarter to compete with the synagogues and Jewish oratories. The stores also serve the religious associations, which use them as sites to advertise upcoming community events, as meeting places to discuss matters of common interest, and as locations to collect tzedakah [charity] money for the poor. One store owner put it this way, “it is

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the superreligious that ask us to come help them to take care of their needs and students.”

The Globalization of Business This business district becomes international through the origins of its patrons and the sources of its products. The clients who sustain these stores are very heterogeneous, a diverse mix. First there are the Jews who live on the Rue des Rosiers because it’s easy for them to find kosher products. Then there are people who have moved, but still are attached to certain stores. People come back to the neighborhood to find stores that they knew when they were very young and that sell things according to their culinary and religious traditions. There are evidently tourists who come to the quarter because it’s “typical,” “alive,” and there is a “visible” Jewish population. A female Jewish informant said “they can see us in the street as we shop. They can see us actually live. It’s not yet a museum.” Different stores participate in different international networks, based on the homelands of their owners and clients (Eastern Europe, North Africa), on where their products are purchased, and on their connections with Israel. For example, a bookshop manager puts the situation this way, “in this bookstore, most of the things that we sell here are imported from Israel: 20 percent from the United States, 70 percent from Israel, and 10 percent from France. The Jewish community of the United States is very important as a dependable tourist clientele.” Although the majority of the products sold in these stores come from France, the origins of the products are also diverse. The purchase of products made in foreign countries sustains the globalization of the community. A Sephardic kosher meat shop owner comments: “the kosher products made in Israel . . . come under a double Israeli and Parisian Beth Din control. During the mad-cow period, we were forced to buy kosher meat from South America to assure a minimum quantity on the market so that the Jewish clientele would be supplied.” Products from outside mostly come from Israel, London, and regions under rabbinical control and French veterinary laws. Products from North Africa include condiments and spices. But absolutely no kosher products come from North Africa, especially meat, which requires particular attention. What distinguishes one store from another is that some produce or transform the items they sell so as to make them typical of specific national traditions. One informant says:


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Every store will have its own on-site fabrication, and they are not subsidiaries of a big headquarter firm somewhere else. Having one’s own products in order to attract clients, that’s what makes for the originality of the Algerian, Tunisian Jew. This is why we go get a specific kind of product at [the store of] someone who interests us. I see a lot of French-printed books that narrate their own traditions, like religious or culinary. Many Tunisians write in French and have their writings published in French publishing houses. Differential globalization can also be seen in the digital management of businesses. Some commercial activities are carried out online. A Chinese store owner in the Jewish quarter put it this way: Eighty percent of our purchases are from the United States. This is a nutrition store. We buy online, through regular mail, and by fax. We make the big majority of our purchases through the Internet because the Internet is more interesting and practical than the fax. We pay through the Internet. The lines are secure, and we haven’t had any problems so far. The Americans have distributors in Europe, so sometimes goods pass through London or Belgium first, because they are ahead of France in terms of these types of products.

Gentile Competition It has been noted that this competition with Jewish businesses is visible in the clothing stores owned by Gentile businessmen and women. This competition has begun to be felt in housing as well. A real estate manager observed: What we are doing now is changing the perception and practice that one sector belongs to such a group and becomes a little ghetto. A year or two ago, it changed. Before, in order to buy a house or business here, one had to be Jewish. We were very strict. Today, because of real estate speculation, there are French people and new non-Jewish faces buying. Three or four years ago, we would not have accepted that. The manager of a women’s clothing store sees the depeopling of the Jewish residents in the neighborhood as inevitable and blames it on the speculation in real estate.

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Global Neighborhoods My impression is that there are fewer and fewer Jewish business owners on this street. If you look across from here, that store has just been closed. It’s a neighborhood that is becoming more and more expensive at the real estate level. There is a theory that says that it’s a gay neighborhood, and these people have a more important purchasing power and can put up more money for real estate.

The Weekly Business Cycle Jewish businesses are all open on Sunday on the Rue de Rosiers, despite the restrictions imposed by the Sunday laws. Stores in Paris can open on Sunday either by authorization or derogation (dispensation). On tourist streets such as the Rue des Francs Bourgeois or the Champs Elysées, shops are opened by authorization, while many businesses on the Rue des Rosiers have dispensations to open on Sundays. “Authorization” means that when a street is classified as a tourist zone, businesses can open on Sundays. In contrast, “dispensation” means that if the street is not a tourist zone, city hall authorizes businesses to open anyway. Saturday is the peak day of the business cycle in most of Paris, but in the Jewish neighborhood, the peak day is Sunday, because Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath, and most Jewish stores are closed. In chapter 5, I explain the cultural chronotype underlying the business week and how every store owner is waiting for Sunday to make a profit. Both Gentile and Jewish stores are open on that day because it is when the largest crowds visit the neighborhood and purchase items from the stores. Although these visitors primarily come to buy from the Jewish stores, they also stop at other stores. This occurs because it is not always possible to distinguish a Jewish store from a Gentile one. The presence of a Jewish manager does not necessarily make a store Jewish, and the presence of non-Jewish servers in a restaurant does not make it Gentile. The quarter is a place where kosher food can be found and bought in large quantities, and it feeds not only its residential Jewish population, but also those who live in other neighborhoods and the suburbs.5 Some individuals are not regular clients, but rather come to buy kosher food only for Passover or Yom Kippur. They do so because they are unable to find the same products in their neighborhoods. This gives a temporal cadence to the ethnic economy and introduces economic cycles to its performance. Sunday or the day preceding a Jewish celebration becomes the peak market day of the week.


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These businesses provide a route for the flourishing of ethnic entrepreneurship. They create new places of commerce, compete among themselves for clientele, make products that are difficult to find available to the community, and sustain the community as a source of jobs for the newly arrived. They also provide a place where people can make transactions in their native languages. These businesses work to increase each other’s success. For example, individuals who come to buy kosher items at the grocery store may stop at the nearby restaurant or café for more purchases. Individuals who come to attend social events in the neighborhood are also encouraged to patronize these stores. Local businesses express the multicultural makeup of the neighborhood in their attempt to cater to Jews who claim Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia as their homelands. As in other parts of Paris, this complicates the relations between diasporic Jews and Arabs, because it has Jews going to Arabic stores that stock merchandise of their homelands and Arabs buying similar items in Jewish stores. In other words, a Sephardic Jew is more likely to find the food items he or she needs in an Arab store than in an Ashkenazi Jewish store. One merchant in the area ventured to say that Gentile stores are allowed to survive there because of the presence of Jewish stores, which attract the crowds on Sunday and the regular clientele on other days. As we’ve noted, once they complete their purchases in Jewish stores, visitors naturally stop in and patronize other stores as well, and in his thinking, without Jewish stores, the other stores would vanish from the neighborhood. According to a Chinese store owner to whom the question was addressed, “It’s not the same thing for Jewish religious celebrations. It’s a community celebration, and it brings Jews who are looking for kosher or Jewish culinary specialties. The presence of several Jews doesn’t change anything for us because they only frequent Jewish establishments during these periods of religious celebrations.”

Jewish Stores in London’s Stamford Hill and Golders Green The Jewish stores in Stamford Hill and Golders Green are sites that distinguish these locales from other quarters in the city of London. The legendary figure of the butcher who delivers the kosher meat to the community is paramount. He contributes to the stability of the residential community through his presence and the goods he offers. He is also able to bring outsiders to the community because his shop is one of the few places where the kosher meat can be purchased.

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The following narrative provides some detailed information about the length of time Jewish stores have existed in the neighborhood. I asked a nonreligious Jewish discount store owner in Stamford Hill to describe the economic activity of any given week and to identify where he purchased the fancy goods, toys, and plastics that he displayed on the premises. His response illustrates many of the themes we already have developed. This store has been in existence for two years. Half of my customers are Jews and half are immigrants from other countries. I open my store on Sunday, and the best day of business for me is Monday. On Friday, the business is open until our usual time, 7:00 P.M. I am not religious, so I do not close early for Sabbath. Monday is the best day for business because it is the first day of the week, and more people come to shop in the store. Sometimes they take a rest on Sunday and come on Monday. Tuesday is not bad. Wednesday is not bad, either. Thursday and Friday are all-right days. But Saturday is the quiet day. It’s the worst day of the week. On Saturday, most of my clientele are not Jewish, and the Jews don’t come because of religious observances. The store is open from 9:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. I make less money on Saturday. I get the goods in the store from England, Turkey, Israel, and Japan. From Israel, I get only the plastics; from Turkey, all of the goods. If I know Jewish firms in these countries, I will buy from them; otherwise, I will buy from anybody. The reason I buy from Turkey is because products are much cheaper there. This is a family-run business. Diverse subgroups contribute to the business atmosphere of the Stamford Hill neighborhood, causing stores to cater to members of the community through specific items sold. This specialization contributes greatly to the growth of the clientele. The multinational diversity of the community is not obvious to outsiders, but is often revealed by those who frequent certain stores more than others. A Yemenite informant commenting on Jewish businesses in the neighborhood and the participation of his own ethnic group noted that: Here there are a few businesses run by Jews from Aden. At the moment, they make a living more or less. They are mostly textile and jewelry businesses. There are maybe about forty people who are in business for themselves. Children work for


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their parents’ businesses. On Saturdays and Jewish holidays, the neighborhood is quiet. In every store there is a section for Jewish products. In one supermarket, there is even a section for kosher meat, attended by a Jewish butcher. Jewish stores are patronized by both Jews and non-Jews. If it is a kosher meat shop, its customers will be mostly Jewish. If it is textile or shoes, their customers can include anybody. Some Jewish stores sell religious books they buy from Israel and New York. A female Jewish high school teacher who has been living in the neighborhood for more than twenty years gave her own assessment of the origins of the products sold in the stores. If you are talking about grocery stores (food), they get their products from here. There are a lot of manufacturers around here. Interestingly, we get a lot of our dairy products from France (cheese, yogurt). We get a lot of our dry foods from Israel, and the USA. Clothing, we get it from Italy. We have a lot of interactions with the Jewish community in Antwerp in terms of celebrations. There are a lot of marriages between us. So people go and come, creating trade of mainly clothing, shoes, things like that. It is really because as communities, we mix a lot and have a lot in common. Since most stores participate in different global networks because of the kinds of things they sell, one would not expect them to maintain trade relations with the same countries. However, there is a common set of countries that form the universe of diasporic transnational trade relations. A religious Jewish real estate informant from Stamford Hill gives us a sense of this commercial universe of globality. “Products come from America, Israel, France, and Italy. People with great taste buy certain French products like cheese; from Italy, they buy pasta, sausage, and cakes; from America, crisps and cheese; and from Israel, books and drinks.” A Jewish employee who has worked for different stores in Golders Green provides a keen view of the Jewish business sector in this neighborhood. They import all that stuff from all over the world. The vast majority for Golders Green’s kosher food is from proper elite companies in Israel and New York. They also use French and Swiss companies for chocolate and alcohol. I was working

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Global Neighborhoods in grocery, so this is something I can tell you all the details about. New York provides grape juice, mayonnaise, ketchup, even cheese. From Israel: snacks, peanuts, cheese, plastics, salads. From France: cheese, yogurt, wine, alcohol. From Switzerland: chocolate, Swiss cheese, kosher cheese. Kosher meat is purchased from the kosher association called Kadasia, or the Federation of Bet Din. They do the slaughter according to religious law. This is local meat. There is also imported meat like soft beef and sausages from France. In these stores, there is no role for employee recruitment. They first employ people who have a similar cultural identity. For example, if someone is from a certain town, like Satmar, he will first try to employ a Satmar, then, if he cannot, he will employ the person who is closest to his ways and traditions. It is easier to get a job from them if you are in their group. I tell you one thing. The kosher food is very expensive in comparison to the nonkosher food. Even black people came and used to buy kosher eggs because they are checked and there is no blood inside. Personally, if you ask me, the quality of the kosher food is lower because it is mostly imported from overseas. And it costs double—even cookies cost half price if they are nonkosher. Multiservice Jewish stores [providing appliances, alcohol, kosher, phone services] get a non-Jewish clientele of about 10 percent. One hour before sunset is the latest shops stay open on Friday. That’s when the Sabbath starts. If a kosher shop does not follow this, it will be denied the permit by the Kosher Association. For Jews, Thursday is the busiest day, because everyone is shopping for the Sabbath. During the Sabbath, Jews stay indoors, so they stock up ahead of time. Friday morning is as busy as Thursday. The busy time starts on Wednesday night and ends on Friday afternoon. Sunday is like Monday for the Christian world. It is like any ordinary day, but it is the first day of the week for Jews.

The Jewish Yellow Pages published in London is a good example of the permanent border-crossing ties of these overseas communities. Not only do Jewish businesses in London and Manchester advertise in it, but also businesses in Israel and the United States. The Yellow Pages circumvent, to a certain extent, the global geography within which these shops operate in terms of products, clientele, and services of-


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fered. Transnational business relations strengthen the global status of the neighborhood and form one component of the infrastructure of globalization in the network of diasporic sites.

Jewish Businesses in Berlin’s Scheunenviertel In Scheunenviertel, visible Jewish businesses with Hebrew signs are almost nonexistent. Tourists in search of such facilities end up asking Gentile stores for Jewish paraphernalia. In my survey of the area, I was able to identify no more than four stores and restaurants that identified themselves as Jewish. In an interview with a German woman who is the manager of a children’s toy shop, she explained how as a non-Jew she has been able to capitalize on this clientele. There were so many tourists asking for Jewish goods when they visited the store and we did not have anything. Last summer, we decided to spend our vacation in Israel to familiarize ourselves with Jewish culture and to make contact with merchants from whom we could buy Jewish products for our store. It was a very interesting trip. In one corner of our store, one can find Jewish books and ritual objects. It was only in the past two years that I became interested in Jewish culture. It adds an important aspect to our store and hopefully helps us meet the needs of our customers. Because of the Holocaust, Jewish businesses in this neighborhood attract mostly tourists who come to visit. They contribute to the survival of the folklore of the place and yet have no connection to what was there before. Such shops do not give an observer the impression of prosperity because they are often closed. The presence of armed German policemen in front of some makes it none too inviting to shop or eat at Jewish stores. This indicates the precariousness of Jewish life in today’s Germany. A Jewish high school teacher explained the sociological reasons why Jewish businessmen have had difficulty in opening or maintaining stores in the historic quarter of Scheunenviertel. “There are not many Jewish businesses in the area, some restaurants, two or three and shops, a bakery. It is very hard today in Germany to start a business; four and half million people are unemployed. Restaurants earn more than 25 percent less than two years ago. It is very difficult to start a restaurant

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or shop or something like that.” He believes that the difficulty associated with starting a Jewish business has more to do with the state of the economy than with anti-Semitism. For an analysis of the various contours in the history and social context of the evolution of Jewish business in the quarter, I turned to the director of the Jewish Cultural Center for her keen observations about the past thirty years of her life in the neighborhood: There are hardly any Jews in Berlin [twelve thousand], maybe another ten thousand unaffiliated Jews. This is not enough to really sustain the shops. Jewish restaurants are here because it is fashionable for the Gentiles. Germans love everything Jewish. It is the Orthodox Jews who would normally go to the Jewish shops. Now I think it is mostly non-Jewish clients. Most fashionable Jewish shops want to attract the non-Jewish clients also, which is why they have books, and all the Judaica stuff, the little things nobody needs. There are two or three Jewish shops where religious Jews who want kosher stuff go. Sometimes non-Jews go there because they like to shop. But basically, these shops are more for the Orthodox community. On the other hand, the Orthodox community often likes to import these things. Like for Passover, they fly a lot of things in because they can buy them in big containers. When we did the Seder here, we asked the ultraOrthodox to run it, and they only accepted kosher meat that came from either Strasbourg, France, or from Antwerp. Sealed goods come from America or Israel and are very expensive. There are also some people who are trying to produce some kosher things in Germany, like wine, but I am not sure how kosher it is. Whenever the rebbe accepts it, we accept it. There are one or two Jewish bakeries, but I just read in the newspaper that the kosher classification was taken away from one, and I am not sure if the other is kosher. The Jewish Community Center at Fesanstrasse used to have a kosher restaurant, but they fired all the people who worked there because they were too expensive to employ. So I am not really sure. There was an Israeli restaurant around the corner that non-Jews considered to be kosher. It was never kosher—the food was not good and very expensive. It actually went bankrupt for those reasons. There is a place near Beth Israel called Beth Café, which says they are kosher, but the ultra-Orthodox won’t accept it, but for others, it is not really a big thing. The modern Orthodox can


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go there, but they can also go to other nonkosher restaurants when they don’t eat meat. Then you have two shops that sell what they consider to be Israeli Jewish goods, including books. Since every good bookshop today has a Judaica department, it is really not necessary to go to one of those specialty stores. You can get everything from the Internet. There is one restaurant, Beth Café, and one store, Kolbo, that sells items from America and Israel, but they are overpriced. They are mostly for the tourists. The restaurant next door connected to the Centrum Judaicum was closed. I don’t know what will happen to it. There are almost no Jews living here, so you don’t need Jewish stores in Scheunenviertel. If people need kosher food, they go to West Berlin, where Rabbi Chabbad Lubavitch is, because they know they will find it there. Other people don’t need it. When we have Orthodox guests, it’s always no problem. We feed them eggs, fish, sardines, and fruit.

The Global Logic of Global Neighborhoods Global neighborhoods could not function as such with an exclusively local identity. Instead, they must deploy a global logic to reflect the reality they represent and to the realization of which they contribute. This global contribution to the making of ethnic businesses can be seen in a number of areas: in the way in which they are constituted, foremost by diasporas of elsewhere; in the way in which they acquire overseas goods to meet the needs of the diasporic residents; in the way in which ethnic entrepreneurs get financing from the homeland or another diasporic settlement; in the way in which they depend on an international clientele for the success of the enterprise; in the way in which they get international exposure through their advertisement in ethnic yellow pages; in the way in which they serve as distribution centers of products for companies that are located elsewhere; in the way in which the residents make purchase orders directly to overseas Jewish companies; in the way in which particular neighborhood businesses function as nodes in a transnational network of businesses; and in the way in which an ethnic entrepreneur makes money in one country and invests it in another. The global nature of the local can also be seen in the real estate and transportation services offered by local entrepreneurs from one site to people in another site; in the arrival of tourists from around the world to patronize neighborhood businesses;

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and in subsidiary businesses located in the hostland or homeland with headquarters in another site. These various occurrences and many more show the everyday linkages on which the existence and success of some of the neighborhood businesses depend. Almost every aspect of the functioning of these businesses is fraught with some aspects of globality, and the success or failure of such ventures depends in no small part on their ability to maintain these global linkages.

Chapter 6


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he Jewish quarters in Paris, Berlin, and London operate on the basis of a cultural time different from that of the rest of the surrounding cities. This temporal dimension is central to understanding the rationale of everyday life in these neighborhoods as global neighborhoods that are networked into the global chronopolis (“chronos” = time; “polis” = city). Individual Jewish residents partake in two different temporal systems, the Jewish calendar, which functions on the basis of lunar-solar cycles, and the Gregorian calendar of the dominant system of society, which follows the solar rotation, migrating from one to the other for secular or religious activities. Some members of the majority group partake in both systems, either because of employment and commerce or their positions as public officials. This Jewish temporal system is maintained because of global flows of relationships linking these neighborhoods to extraterritorial sites such as the ancestral homeland and other diasporic enclaves. Jewish quarters in the European Union thus function on the basis of weekly and yearly cycles different from the temporal cadence followed by the majority of the urban population. While the Gregorian calendar of mainstream society sets the rhythm for the deployment of the temporal sequence of religious and secular activities there, in the Jewish quarter, the Jewish calendar takes precedence over all other time-reckoning systems. The cultural differences between the majority population and the Jewish neighborhood are marked by different days of rest and worship (Saturday instead of Sunday), different organizations of the week (Friday as the main market day instead of Saturday); different months of the beginning of the year (September instead of January), different times for the beginning of the day (sundown instead of midnight), and different monthly blocs, which do not coincide in terms of beginning date and length (the Jewish calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar). In fact, the use of Saturday as the peak day of the 101

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week because of the celebration of the Sabbath, Friday as the “day of preparation,” and the closing of stores on Saturday in the Jewish quarter sets the Jewish weekly cycle in a motion that structures it differently from that of the dominant civil week of mainstream society. The presence of a diasporic neighborhood in a host society leads to an encounter between mainstream and ethnic temporalities. For some diasporic communities, this asynchronous relationship appears in nuanced temporal differences between rituals, ethnic celebrations, and symbolic actions, while, for others, the asynchronicity is more visible, especially if a different calendar is involved. The Jewish quarter in the European Union provides an example where the daily, weekly, and yearly rhythms follow beats that differ from the dominant temporality of mainstream society. Therefore, ethnic time offers a productive angle through which the globalization of the Jewish quarter can be analyzed. The view that diasporic temporality is not in sync with mainstream temporality or that its encounter with the dominant temporal system as a site of conflict because it is one arena where hegemony produces subalternity has received scant attention in the sociological literature. However, some inroads in terms of addressing aspects of the problem have been made and contribute to our reproblematization of the mode of inscription of ethnic temporality in society.1 Georges Gurvitch’s concept of “multiple time” points to the plurality of temporalities in a society and provides the implicit justification for P. Crow Graham and Allan Graham’s notion of “community time” as a sui generis phenomenon.2 While Homi Bhabha sees these different temporalities as emerging in different historical periods and as constitutive of various facets of the nation, Michael Hanchard conceptualizes these temporalities in terms of the need of a racial state to racialize them in order to justify discriminatory practices.3 In contrast, Michael J. Shapiro places the emphasis on the management of these disjunctive temporalities as a key function of the state.4 The analysis of the construction of diasporic temporalities, their relations to the mainstream, and the global flows that link them to extraterritorial sites are provided in a recent sociological study on urban multiculturalism in New York City.5 This chapter argues that Jewish temporality provides a diasporic cadence and an organizing principle around which the everyday life of observant Jews in the Jewish quarters in Paris, Berlin, and London is performed. It shows that time conflicts have arisen from the encounters of the cultural practices of the dominant Gregorian calendar with those of the subaltern Jewish calendar because they are two unequal time-reckoning systems. The chapter also further explains that the globalization of ethnic time serves as an infrastructure for the cultural expression of the globalization of the Jewish quarter.


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The Practice of Jewish Time in Paris’s Le Marais The ecosystems of the three major European cities under study are made of diverse temporal niches that both shape and are shaped by diasporic subcultures. These temporal offshoots are less visible than spatial ghettoization, since temporal ghettoization has escaped the radar screen of observers and researchers for a long time. Nevertheless, temporal ghettoization is part of the fabric of these cities and deserves our scrutiny because time is a central factor in the organization of community life and the integration of these diasporas into society. I interviewed both Jewish and Gentile members of the Jewish quarter in Paris to find out how they experience the expression of Jewish temporality, that is, how the Jewish weekly cycle affects residents, irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds or religious orientations. The practice of the Jewish calendar infuses a specific order in the deployment of everyday life in the neighborhood different from the cadence of the Gregorian week.6 To unveil that specificity, I asked a few individual residents of the Jewish quarter to explain the rationale of the week from the standpoint of their business or work practices. A Sephardic Jewish bookstore owner explains the neighborhood weekly sequence in relation to his line of business activities and the extra profit that he may or may not realize: We close at 3:00 P.M. on ordinary Fridays. We always close two hours before the beginning of Shabbat. Sunday is our strongest business day. Everybody else [non-Jews] closes in France. For us, the entire neighborhood is opened. We make four to six times the profit of an ordinary day. Everything depends on the period. Monday is a very calm day. On Tuesday, it picks up a little bit. Wednesday is a good day because many kids don’t go to school. So the parents are with them and bring them to the neighborhood to walk around. Thursday is a good day, and Friday it depends. If Shabbat [sundown] is too early and we close at 3:00 P.M., it makes for a very average day. When Shabbat starts a little later in the summer, we close at five, and then we can have a good day of business. He provides a further assessment of the temporal buying pattern of the clientele based on his long experience in the neighborhood: Friday morning is when they come shop for Sabbath. It’s the feeding [alimentation] aspect. In terms of food products, Friday

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Global Neighborhoods is a huge day, but here in the bookstore, there is no particular reason to buy books on a Friday. It happens the whole week, while, for food, it’s on Friday. The butcher shop across from here, on Friday morning, it’s an explosion. These days, we have had tourists; during the year, there are many. The neighborhood is more or less in every tourist guidebook as a historic community. People come here with their tourist guidebooks in hand. The tourist profit is about 10 percent of our revenue at the bookstore. The restaurants, it’s a lot more. These are books, and the majority are in French. The tourists come to buy ceremonial objects [objets de culte], but very few books.

An Ashkenazi Jewish bookstore owner who grew up in the neighborhood and had to hide during the Nazi occupation of Paris (1940–1942) provides his own assessment of how the Jewish calendar cadences the rhythms of business activities in the neighborhood. As he put it: On Fridays, business diminishes starting at noon. The day before other Jewish religious holidays, it’s the same thing. When it’s a day of celebration, of ceremony, it’s always like that. The day before, it’s a day of preparation, and we invade the stores to buy necessary things. It’s true, you have people who come into a Jewish neighborhood on Thursdays to do some important shopping. Those who come on Friday, come last. The Ashkenazi owner and manager of a textile store sees everyday practices during the week as cadenced by the business and religious activities undertaken in the neighborhood. According to this local observer: On Saturdays, the Orthodox or very traditional community observes Shabbat by going to the synagogue and not doing anything at all. That doesn’t prevent the neighborhood from living and moving. There are a lot of tourists who come, a lot of strollers, people taking walks who come to visit the neighborhood. It must also be noted that the French, in their entirety, are bored on Sundays, on the weekend. So what does one do? One becomes a stroller again, rediscovers his capital or particular places in Paris, especially places that are a little picturesque, since today everything tends to become banal. Everything tends to crystallize [migeler] toward the bottom with, from time to time, some HLMs [low-income housing], a little park with some greenery.


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And on Sundays, since the Catholics go to Mass, we do not have the right to work, to do what we want. The average Catholic and others come here to visit. On Sundays there is a great deal of activity on the Rue des Rosiers, the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, and in the neighborhood as a whole. In its entirety, Friday afternoon has become an anticommercial day: People get ready for Shabbat, people move around more and more, the result being that on Friday afternoon there are no truly commercial activities. This neighborhood, where the Sephardic Jews are more numerous than the Ashkenazim, is becoming religious again. This means when there are religious holidays that we, the Ashkenazim, do not observe, the Sephardim observe them, and their shops remain closed. When Shabbat arrives—sometimes it starts at 4:00 P.M, or even 2:00 P.M., depending on the time of the sunset—half of the stores are closed. So there is an acknowledgment of the religious aspect here in France that is not a result of the Intifada or about manifesting one’s Jewishness. There is simply a return toward religion, toward something more serene, calm, protective, divine. A manager of a Chinese nutrition store told us how he adapts to the Jewish weekly cycles and what he sees as the advantages and disadvantages of having a business in the Jewish neighborhood: In this neighborhood, starting from Friday afternoon, it’s Shabbat. Between Friday evening and Saturday evening, Jewish commercial activities are dead. Or they are taken over by nonJews. During this period, the population surplus that comes to visit the gay neighborhood also comes as tourists to visit the Jewish neighborhood. This constitutes a clientele for the non-Jewish stores that are open. On the one hand, the Jewish Shabbat diminishes the profits of the non-Jews. On the other hand, the opening of Jewish stores on Sundays that brings many Jews to the neighborhood makes profit go up for the Gentile stores that are not closed on Sundays. Everyone waits for the Sunday crowd to take advantage of the throng of visitors to the neighborhood. An employee of the mayor’s office that oversees zoning compliance in the neighborhood finds the Saturday issue fascinating because more people are opening their stores on that day, and there is pressure for the rest of Jewish businesses to follow suit.

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Global Neighborhoods On Saturdays you will notice more and more businesses that are open. However, there are still many that are closed. Don’t consider these statements a provocation. The law of trade has taken precedence over heritage and tradition. Business on the Rue des Rosiers is less and less represented by small corner stores, and kosher butcher shops are increasingly becoming fashion businesses, sometimes even of great quality, very expensive clothes. These local businesses are more likely to open on Saturday, a day when [Gentile] Parisians usually go shopping.

The way in which the weekend in the Jewish quarter differs from the weekend in the rest of Paris was spelled out by an octogenarian Jewish resident. This Ashkenazi old-timer who has been observing everyday life in the neighborhood for many years said, “Saturday means a holy day and Sunday means celebration. That means that everything explodes. On Sundays; stores open, people in the street explode [with celebration], even the thugs explode.” Yearly celebrations also cadence the activities of the neighborhood and contribute to the accentuation of its specificity vis-à-vis the rest of the city. A Sephardic kosher store owner points out the different periods of the year when diasporic businesses make more money because of Jewish religious celebrations. In contrast, Christian celebrations do not drive profit in the Jewish quarter the same way they do in mainstream society. As this Sephardic merchant puts it: There are three big moments: The Tishri religious celebrations at the beginning of the Jewish year (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot)—it’s a large period. You then have Hanukah; it corresponds this year with the New Year [Christmas]. It’s a good period, and then Pesach [Passover], which is the best period, since everybody is invited to everybody’s home, and everybody gives presents. Everybody moves. It is good to be in the food business at Pesach, otherwise, the rest of the year, people who eat kosher buy their meat here and do the rest of their shopping in the supermarkets. At Pesach, they buy everything they eat here. To show the centrality of the neighborhood to Jews in other parts of the city and in the diaspora, a Jewish entrepreneur who owns a business in the area gives a rough estimate of those who use the business facilities of the Jewish quarter.


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The clientele here is composed of 20 percent tourists, 50 percent religious people, the people that come to celebrate the Sabbath here, and 30 percent other people. People come here to buy either books or articles that correspond to religious celebrations that will take place. Now you see, you have in front of you the Hanukkah religious objects. People from the neighborhood are not buyers. When people know you inside out [à l’endroit et à l’envers], that’s how it is. The existence of ethnic temporality not only leads to Jewish participation in mainstream temporality, but also to Gentile public officials and those who work for Orthodox Jewish firms partaking in Jewish temporality. The latter are called to do so to keep their jobs, and the former as a public gesture of friendship and goodwill toward the group. After all, public officials are dependent on the votes of these ethnics to win elections. When the mayor of the Fourth Arrondissement of Paris attends services in synagogues on Shabbat or during high holy days, she bends her dominant Western civil time to accommodate to the deployment of subaltern Jewish time. An official at the city hall in Paris reported that: city hall collaborates with the Jewish neighborhood: Mrs. Bertinotti, our mayor, systematically goes to all the synagogues of the Fourth Arrondissement during Jewish religious celebrations. She is always invited. There is a strong relationship between her and the community. During those celebrations and afterward we sometime hold events at the town hall, some conferences on Jewish history and memory, etcetera. We have a memorial for Jewish martyrs in the Fourth Arrondissement. There is, evidently, a strong relationship between the mayor and the heads of the community, whether they are rabbis, supervisors of various synagogues, or any other person who is a leader.

The Practice of Jewish Time in London’s Stamford Hill Since the Jewish stores are concentrated on a couple of streets in Stamford Hill, a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood in London, the early closing of these stores on Friday and all day on Saturday affects routine activities in this area. While the few stores owned by nonreligious Jews remain open on Saturday because these individuals do not follow the law of the Sabbath, the majority of the stores close. Sometimes they

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do so to avoid becoming the target of boycotts by religious Jews. A Jewish informant from Burma categorically states that “on Friday, the businesses close early, especially in winter, when it gets dark earlier. Non-Jewish stores are allowed to open, and they do so.” The surrounding Gentile community has become aware of the Jewish weekly cycle and has adapted to it in matters related to the use of Jewish stores. This is seen especially in the area of real estate, where no appointments are made on a Saturday since the office is closed on that day. On Saturday, as on all holy days, the street has a special air, with Jews dressed up and on their way to the synagogue. On Sunday, most stores are open again for business. These two temporalities, one hegemonic and the other subaltern, police each other in ways that invite dialogue between members of these two communities. A Hasidic Jewish teacher in Stamford Hill, an immigrant from Morocco, provides an illustration of how this is sometimes choreographed: The Gentile community around here is definitely used to it. I mean one Friday I was a little late. I was speaking on my phone, and a neighbor stopped and said: “It is the beginning of Sabbath.” I said, “excuse me. I have time. It’s twelve past eight.” There are huge advantages to the fact that we stop everything, including using mobile phones and computers, and close the stores. We really get time to be with the family, and we sit down together. Even if you have had the most hurtful week, you get that time to reflect, unwind, and spend quality time with the people you love the most, that you are there for. There is no point otherwise. You have guests and time to socialize. Businesswise, we believe very strongly that you don’t lose, and there is no way to lose out by keeping the Sabbath. Jewish temporality in its encounter with civil time affects not only business practices in Stamford Hill, but also the public school system and senior citizens’ care. While Jewish schools are free to close on Jewish holy days, Jewish students who attend public schools may decide not to attend classes so that they can take part in these celebrations, but the school system remains open and continues to function as usual. Such Jewish students must make up the time lost during their absence. Such time conflicts are not resolved by the state, as they are in New York City, but are left to the parents to decide whether they want to keep their children at home. Senior citizen care also is affected by Jewish temporality. In the senior citizens’ facilities controlled by the Hasidic community, Jewish


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temporality cadences the daily activities of such institutions. While this pattern does not create any problems for observant Jews, it does force Gentile senior citizens to adjust to it. A non-Jewish British octogenarian and veteran of World War II whom I met while waiting for the bus to take me from Stamford Hill to downtown London told me that during the Jewish high holy days, he spends his time riding the bus around London because the senior center he goes to is closed for the Jewish celebrations. He also complained about the shorter period of time the center remains open on Friday because of the observance of Shabbat.

The Practice of Jewish Time in Berlin’s Scheunenviertel The former Jewish ghetto lost most of its population during World War II, and, as we’ve seen, those who returned from the concentration camps for the most part did not come to live in the area. Some of the survivors emigrated to Palestine, before the creation of the State of Israel, England, or the United States. Today, this Jewish neighborhood houses some Jewish institutions and social organizations (the Centrum Judaicum, the Neue Synagoge, the Judischer Kultureverein, the Jewish School, the Jewish Cemetery, Adass Yisroel, and the Central Council of Jews in Germany), but few Jewish citizens. Still, the neighborhood displays its own Jewish temporality, despite the small number of Jewish residents. On Saturday morning, the Neue Synagoge on Oranienburgerstrasse is a magnet for about fifty congregants who come from other parts of Berlin and a few visitors from abroad. The arrival of Jews for Shabbat services and the extra police in front of the synagogues for the protection of the congregation visibly make one aware of the coexistence of these temporalities. It is the only day of the week when the use of the kippa (yarmulke) by Jews is seen in this neighborhood. The closing of the two main Jewish businesses, Kolbo and Beth Café, on Shabbat while the Gentile stores remain open for business is another sign of this time of difference. Perhaps the Jewish school, because it closes on Jewish holy days, is the main marker of difference in the neighborhood. Closing the school on these days affects both Jewish and Gentile parents, since both Jewish and non-Jewish students are enrolled in the school. The closing of the Jewish school on Jewish high holy days accommodates Jewish parents and students and forces Gentile parents, school staff, and students to adjust to the requirements of these holidays.

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Time Conflicts Using Gregorian time as the mainstream or state time necessarily leads to the recognition of ethnic time as subaltern time and the management of time conflicts created by the diverse temporalities of the nation. Which time does the state use in the recognition of nonreligious events to mark the memory of the community? While it is not normally problematic for the mayor of the Fourth Arrondissement of Paris to attend services in a synagogue on a Jewish holy day, it becomes so when the city organizes a secular event on a Jewish holy day for the benefit of the Jewish residents. Time sensitivity is the way to avoid such conflict, and the imposition of mainstream time in such a circumstance may simply magnify the problem. As the president of the Jewish Merchants’ Association in Le Marais, Paris, put it, “the mayor made a big mistake when she held a ceremony for placing plaques on November 15, 2003, the day of the Sabbath. Of course, no rabbi and no Jewish person who observed the Sabbath showed up. It was a monumental mistake for a public official to plan secular activities on behalf of Jews on the day of the Sabbath.” Time conflicts affect both the use of space and spatial mobility. The management of such disjunctive temporalities makes it difficult for Jews and non-Jews to use the same public space while following different rules. Sacred ethnic time inserted into the dominant week reverses, legally or illegally, the modalities of the use of public space and forces Jews to develop alternative ways of coping with the requirements of their faith. An official at city hall offers the following comments on this issue: Some Jews live in the neighborhood, but fewer and fewer among the businesses. We have some Orthodox Jews in the arrondissement. They do not constitute a majority and are not the most representative. However, a few years ago, especially during Jewish religious holidays, they would break the entrance door or the glass window so that they wouldn’t have to use the electronic code [which is forbidden on the Sabbath]. These kinds of “folkloric” things are, in any case, disappearing from the Rue de Rosiers. We have a few government-subsidized houses [logements sociaux] on the Rue des Rosiers, and they were the ones who would tell us about the Jews refusing to use the codes. We don’t hear about them any more. In the realm of business, the interface of Jewish time with the Gregorian calendar sometimes produces a discordance that negatively


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impacts the operations of certain firms. Real estate is one area where such a conflict exists, both in its renting and selling/buying practices. In renting, the use of the digital code (digicode) for entry poses problems in some buildings because the Orthodox cannot use it on the Sabbath day and when buying or selling, they cannot make themselves available on that day. One Gentile real estate manager said that, “I know people who do not use the digicode of the building on Saturdays because there are Orthodox Jews in the building. If the door stays open, it can cause all kinds of problems: vagrants coming, stealing, and noise. In real estate, when the Orthodox rent or sell, they are not available on Saturdays to answer the questions of buyers, and it causes problems.” Time conflicts also affect spatial mobility by preventing people from moving into certain neighborhoods or apartments in the city in order to avoid problems in the use of space. An employee of the Ministry of Finance of the French government decided not to take up residence near the Jewish quarter in a Jewish-owned building because of the conflict in the management of Gregorian and Jewish time. This government official told me: Two years ago, I was looking for an apartment to rent in the Fourth Arrondissement, and I noticed that several of the buildings belonged to Jews who don’t even live in the neighborhood. Jewish and non-Jewish friends told me to be careful not to rent in buildings where there are Orthodox Jews in order to avoid inconveniences on certain days of the week. They would tell me that in certain houses, the gate of the [surrounding] wall stays open on Saturdays because Jews cannot use the opening code on the day of the Sabbath. There is the same problem on Jewish religious holidays. So I finally decided to rent an apartment in the Thirteenth Arrondissement. Time conflicts take us out of the internal logic of Jewish temporality into its encounter with civil time inside and outside the Jewish quarter. What results is that the Jews and Gentiles who are affected by this disjuncture either are able to accommodate each other or are forced to experience disappointment and eventually seek redress.

Sunday Afternoons in Paris’s Jewish Quarter As we have seen, as the first day of the week of the Jewish calendar, Sunday is a day when all of the Jewish stores are open to do business with regular and tourist clientele. Some non-Jewish stores are also open

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to take advantage of this crowd. While the merchants enjoy the presence of this large clientele, some among them, including those who live there, complain about the behavior of young Jews from the suburbs who routinely come to the neighborhood on Sunday afternoons to socialize with their friends. As a resident of the neighborhood puts it, “As you know, the media creates a diabolical image of the suburbs, the language of the riffraff [racaille]. As there is the Arab riffraff, there is also a Jewish riffraff. And the business owners here are divided. There are people who are against the young who cause disorder and others who are happy to see the young, especially with the new feminine fashions where girls display undergarments.” Those who are against the presence of this young crowd in the neighborhood on Sunday blame the violence or fights they engage in at the expense of the personal security of the neighbors, the fear of old people that they may be harassed by these unwelcome visitors, the noise they make with their cars and motorcycles, the trash they leave behind, their rudeness, and the overcrowding of the quarter. A middle-aged Jewish female resident observed: They do their pilgrimage here every weekend, those that live elsewhere. However, there has been a problem over the last two or three years. On Sunday afternoons, the atmosphere of this street changes. It has become a meeting place for some of the young people of the Jewish community. Generally it’s kids from Sephardic families. And it seems to be going very badly. The atmosphere is very ugly when one goes out in the street. There are many fights in the street. And there are gangs that fight. And I think that there are also political gangs that are internal to the community, like people from Petard who are staunch rightists. There is also drug trafficking, from what I’ve been told. The police come often. The kids have a lot of money; they dress, stand on a sidewalk and spend practically the whole afternoon there. It makes for a compact and undesirable mass, and it’s dangerous. There are people who no longer go out on Sunday afternoons on this street. The street residents, they leave in the morning and come back in the evening as late as possible to avoid these gatherings because apparently there are always problems. It’s really a very disagreeable atmosphere and not in agreement with our ideal of a fulfilled [épanouie] community. I was telling an old Jewish teacher that if the community is reflected on poorly because of the image of these youths on Sunday afternoons on the Rue des Rosiers,


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it does not have much chance for survival. She said, “Yes, it really is problematic.” An older Ashkenazi Jewish couple who owns and lives in a second floor apartment on the Rue des Rosiers identified the problems they see with the presence of the youth and provided their own interpretation of the phenomenon. We do not approve. It turns out that it is the young people from the suburbs who come hang out on Sundays in the neighborhood. They are mostly young Jews. What is happening here in the neighborhood on Sundays will not happen in the suburbs because they cannot do it there, with the Maghrebi communities in much greater number. It’s not things that would happen, because there would be terrible fights. They circulate in the street, they prevent everybody from passing by, they’re rude. They make noise with their bikes’ engines to annoy everybody. I think that the rudeness that they show us is mortifying. Ninety percent of them are Sephardic Jews, all the way from North Africa. They’ve always spoken loudly. It’s their temperament. A Gentile French woman who manages a women’s store in the neighborhood, however, has no objection to the presence of the crowd on Sunday. In fact, she thinks that it is a blessing for her store: “We do not see this population of young suburbanites during the week, we only see them during the weekend. We hear them and see them pass on scooters. It does not bother me, and the store has not been negatively affected by their presence. Not at all. And often the neighborhood is a passing area for them. We see more young people on the Rue des Rosiers than here.” A Sephardic man who manages a Jewish bookstore also sees the Sunday visitors from the suburbs in a positive light because they bring more life to the neighborhood. As he puts it, “It is a good thing that young people come here on Sundays because it is too quiet without them. It so happens that this Sunday there was a little fighting. But it’s not like that every Sunday. It’s an exceptional case. They’re good kids, just people who want to meet up with one another.” Sunday in the quarter is not characterized simply by the influx of young suburbanites, but also by the business activities that give the neighborhood an extra dose of vitality. A middle-aged Jewish woman describes the situation in the following manner:

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Global Neighborhoods It’s a neighborhood that is also a Jewish commercial district. For example, on Sundays, there is a sort of pilgrimage. There are many consumers who come here to buy things. There are also non-Jews who come here to experience the whole neighborhood. The Rue des Francs Bourgeois is one of the first streets of Paris where businesses were allowed to open on Sunday. People who live in the neighborhood either stay at home to meditate or they go out. On the other hand, a lot of other people come to the neighborhood, people from other neighborhoods or tourists.

The crowd in the Jewish quarter in Paris on Sunday afternoons is a reflection of the different temporality followed by the neighborhood. The stores are open while stores elsewhere in the city are closed for business. While the legislation prohibiting businesses to operate on Sundays affects the Gentile areas, it does not apply in the quarter, which turns the neighborhood into a magnet for some to spend their idle time.

Time of Difference The concept of a “time of difference” illustrates the idea of the difference that time makes. Such a difference is manifested not only in the deployment of the week, but also in the deployment of the year. The calendar difference between the dominant and the diasporic system also means that the Jewish and the mainstream New Year are celebrated at different times and therefore generate different dynamics in these communities, even though some members take part in both. The difference also means that religious celebrations punctuated all along the year fracture the yearly cycle into secular and religious times, which further desynchronize the Jewish year from the civil year. Throughout the year, Jewish holy days express and project the diasporic character of the Jewish neighborhood because of the business activities they generate, the visitors they bring for religious services, the tourists they attract, and the stores that are open on Sundays. These holidays also affect nearby non-Jewish stores because of the surplus population that flows over to visit the Gentile stores in the neighborhood and the additional profit they make when Jewish stores are not open for business because of the holy days. Because they desynchronize the Jewish year from the Gregorian year, yearly celebrations in the Jewish quarter serve to reinforce iden-


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tity, perpetuate traditions, and cause Jewish business cycles to remain constant. The yearly cycle thus is an important manifestation of Jewish temporality in terms of the number of people it brings to the neighborhood for religious services; the different items that are stored for purchase for each feast; the police activity it generates, causing the need for advanced planning by the local police department; and the encouragement it gives non-Jewish stores to plan ahead of time in order to attract the overflow clientele and make a profit. The observance of the Jewish calendar has affected the relations of the community with extraterritorial sites in many different ways: through purchases of things abroad to be resold in the neighborhood, through the numbers of tourists who visit these sites yearly, and through residents who spend time with family abroad or who receive visitors from abroad. Temporal differences expressed by temporary movements of people in and out the neighborhood are indices that mark the parameters of the neighborhood as a global chronopolis.

Temporal Globalization Time is a factor of globalization because it links diasporic units dispersed throughout the globe in the practice of their faith. The weekly or yearly temporal structure is not particular to the European Jewish quarters, but is based on a religious calendar used by religious Jews wherever they happen to live, either in Israel or in the diaspora. Each community, however, adapts this global temporal structure to local circumstances. This adaptation affects many aspects of Jewish daily life. It affects the temporal sequence of periods of worship, calculated on the basis of the Jewish calendar, including the daily prayers, the beginning and ending of the Sabbath, the high holy days, and minor festivals. These temporal sequences are followed by the observant no matter where they live, giving a global rhythm to the faith. It affects the globalization of the stores that refurbish their inventories to meet the demands for Jewish items in preparation for the holy days. There is an intensity of global trade relations in the community at certain periods near these holy days that sustains the infrastructure of the neighborhood. It affects the international flow of visitors who come to the Jewish quarter during certain periods either as tourists or to visit loved ones. Holy days are times when interenclave visitations are at their peak, thus intensifying transnational relations. If unable to travel, they call each other on the phone and keep alive these international linkages.

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It affects the global Jewish intelligence community, so that proper security apparatuses can be put in place to prevent people from being hurt by intruders. Holidays are periods when people share intelligence and exchange information and individual enclaves come under closer surveillance by the global network of Jewish intelligence agents. Finally, it affects Jewish diasporic relations with Israel because some prefer to visit their “homeland” during these periods, because others undertake fundraising for Israel or other Jewish causes in order to help communities experiencing financial difficulties, and because the group-oriented occasions of these holy days facilitate public discussion of Israel’s needs.

Chapter 7


T

he relations of the neighborhood with city hall are a pivotal issue to analyze in order to understand the Jewish quarter’s manifold globalization. These relations have a global content, and their outcome disciplines some aspects of the shape of neighborhood globalization. This is so because city hall has more than just the well-being of the neighborhood in mind in developing the municipality’s urban policies. The local government must think not only in terms of the articulation of the Jewish quarter with the rest of the city, but also in terms of increasing profit by opening it up to tourists and therefore enhancing the tax base and improving the local economy. Globalization is also a factor when this issue is seen from the residents’ standpoint. These relations, among other things, are evaluated in terms of the residents’ ability to maintain ties with the homeland and other diasporic sites through the maintenance and reproduction of their way of life and cultural traditions, which also attract tourists to their businesses. While city hall has the tourist trade in general in mind, the residents think more specifically in terms of Jewish tourists, that is, Jews who come to visit and buy things from the merchants, attend synagogue services and other cultural events, or simply to patronize the local restaurants. Within this context, one may, for example, evaluate the residents’ strong opposition to the recent initiative proposed by the Parisian mayor’s office to renovate, modernize, and reshape the look of the streets and redirect traffic routes inside the Jewish quarter.1 The views of the residents, of course, were not homogeneous. Those opposing the initiative were to be found mostly among local merchants who wanted to protect the integrity of their niche market and among religious Jews who depended on the shops in the quarter for the purchase of religious books, cultic objects, and kosher food. Nevertheless, the controversy over the renovation of the Jewish quarter evolved out of two different approaches to city planning, two different perceptions 117

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of the problem that the ethnic neighborhood faced, and two different ways of stabilizing the Jewish character of the site—a top-down approach taken by city hall and a bottom-up approach used by advocates for preserving the ethnic character of the neighborhood. Ironically, it was the neighborhood’s opposition to the plan that was reinforced by globalized local resources against the efforts of city hall to implement the French national ideal of equality, of treating everyone the same, rather than conserving ethnic differences. The renovation controversy thus provides an example of a site where the global not only meets the local, but also complicates the local resolution of the problem. In the winter of 2004, while conducting field research in the Jewish neighborhood in Paris, I became aware of this boiling opposition to the mayor’s plan to refurbish the site and the Jewish merchants’ association’s plan to stop the implementation of what they considered an ill-advised initiative.2 I went to the mayor’s office to interview a high-ranking municipal official so as to have a better sense of the rationale behind this new urban planning project, including what was to be remodeled and the timetable contemplated for implementation. I interviewed the point person of the mayor in charge of the Jewish quarter dossier, who both advises the mayor and coordinates her relations with the Jewish neighborhood in matters related to local democracy. Well-informed on the position of the dissident group of merchants and other residents, this municipal official briefly explained to me that the plan of renovation was in line with the Plan Malreaux, in which the former Minister of Culture elaborated and promulgated a national agenda for the renovation of French cities. So far, this national plan had been implemented almost everywhere in Paris except in the Jewish quarter. The Jewish quarter initiative was an offspring of this larger plan and has been elaborated, according to this official, taking into consideration the views of the residents and the needs of the municipality. In the mayor’s view, the outcome of renovation would be good for both the neighborhood and the city in terms of revenue maximization, the facilitation of traffic, and the modernization of the streets.

Neighborhood Renovation and Globalization Although the ethnic character of the neighborhood existed prior to the existence of France as a nation-state, the politics of the city visà-vis its renovation must be seen in light of the current assimilation policy of the municipal government. Various aspects of French urban policy regarding ethnic neighborhoods have emphasized the notion


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of social and ethnic balance to prevent the spatial concentration of immigrants, the ghettoization of their residential space, and the polarization of ethnic communities as well as to enhance their incremental integration in French daily life. The French municipal government sees ethnic enclaves as impeding assimilation and as potential sources of conflict. Therefore, the municipality views the role of the state as upholding the common good in its planning policy above the ethnic good.3 While some analysts view the housing market as the main catalyst of integration, others point to ethnic commerce as the angle through which the ethnic enclave interacts with city officials.4 Others stress the unanticipated consequences of urban reorganization or argue that urban renewal has been undertaken with the intent of transforming Paris into the cultural capital of the European Union.5 Neighborhood renewal is a factor of globalization because of the external forces that are involved in its production. Located at the interesection of two different views of the role of the neighborhood in the city, two different views of city planning, and two different views of how renewal will influence the neighborhood, neighborhood renovation carries with it the possibility of conflict because it forces both city hall officials and neighborhood residents to engage in face-to-face interaction to negotiate the outcome of the process. From the standpoint of the nation-state, renovation is meant to modernize the locale by alleviating the plight of the residents, refurbishing the infrastructure, and preventing all the negative aspects of ghettoization, such as segregation, juvenile delinquency, unemployment, and poverty in general. The sociological literature on French urban policy concerning neighborhood renovation addresses these various aspects of the issue and derives from the French ideology of citizenship, in which ethnicity is viewed as a secondary factor. In this context, neighborhood renewal in the Jewish quarter simply meant the harmonization of the site with the rest of the city to enhance the quality of life in the neighborhood and augment its ability to produce tax revenues. In contrast, the Jewish neighborhood saw urban renovation in terms of strengthening the ethnic identity of the site, enhancing the ability of the stores to increase profits by luring more clientele to shop in the neighborhood, and improving the quality of life by receiving more services from the city, such as street cleaning, garbage collection, and crime prevention. City hall and the Jewish residents also possessed two different views of the role globalization ought to play in the renovation of the neighborhood. For city hall, renovation was to bring in more tourists,

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along with more expensive stores that would cater to tourists’ needs, thereby contributing positively to the budget of the city. In contrast, the Jewish merchants saw the neighborhood as a global site because of the extraterritorial relations it has always maintained with other Jewish sites. They regarded uncontrolled renovation as undermining the infrastructure through which they expressed their identity because of the inevitable flight of the residential population as a result of higher rents and real estate speculation of all kinds. This chapter examines how, in this case, ethnic neighborhood renovation was negotiated at the interface of the local with the global. Furthermore, it shows how the dynamic of globalization from below and globalization from above affect the decision-making process in urban planning.

The City Hall Plan for the Neighborhood The controversy over the mayor’s proposal to modernize the Jewish quarter hinged on two main arguments. The proponents of the plan, the city hall officials, claimed that the quarter should match the reality of the rest of Paris. The opponents of the plan, the Jewish quarter residents and merchants, believed that it was important to preserve the villagelike life that had provided a protective niche for the maintenance of their culture. From the viewpoint of city hall, the plan called for minimal change, while local Jewish merchants saw it as a major intervention that would destroy the last bastion of Jewish life in Paris. On June 24, 2003, in a public meeting attended by both local government officials, supporters of the plan, and members of the merchants’ association and others opposed to the implementation of the initiative, the mayor explained the changes that would be made and the rationale for the proposal. After recognizing the well-deserved international reputation of the Rue des Rosiers—the street targeted for remodeling—she mentioned the enduring problems of the street related to loitering, overcrowding, lack of security, noise, and automobile traffic. She then framed the issue by stating: “How can we offer business a better environment by reducing the presence of cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and mopeds, reducing the overflowing crowds, while also facilitating a new environment for the local residents’ daily activities? This is the goal of the renovation planned for the Rue des Rosiers.” In the following statement, she explained how her administration intended to resolve the issue.


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The first action must be to increase pedestrian space. However, because firemen need 3.5 meters of open space [in the street], and with more than 3.5 meters people will try to park their cars, the only way to improve pedestrian life is to transform the Rue des Rosiers (and therefore la Rue des Ecouffes and perhaps la Rue Duval) into a semipedestrian street without sidewalks and where pedestrians have priority, but where cars can go under fifteen kilometers per hour. There will be a central lane of 3.5 meters with flowers and trees planted on the north side (facing south) and decorations on the south side (potted plants, streetlights, stone boundaries). . . . The primary goal is to avoid easy and multiple points of access to the Rue des Rosiers and then to avoid the traffic congestion along the Rue des Rosiers. To do that, it is necessary to reverse the direction of Rue Duval and the last section of the Rue du Roi de Sicilie (between Rue Duval and Rue Malher) for the south side of Rue des Rosiers. North of Rue des Rosiers it is necessary to reverse the last section of Rue des Hospitalières Saint-Gervais before Rue des Francs-Bourgeois. The second action will be to reduce the size of trucks allowed to drive on Rue des Rosiers. . . . The third action will be to reduce and better organize the types of parking allowed: allowing deliveries, but limiting them from stopping in the middle of the street, and covering four distinct zones that satisfy the various businesses on the Rues des Rosiers, Ecouffes, Duval, and Hospitalières. Rue Pavée is the only entrance to Rue des Rosiers, which gives an easy option for establishing a barricade on Sundays between 2:00 P.M. and 7:00 or 8:00 P.M. . . . This barricade will allow firemen, ambulances, and local residents with proper identification [to enter the street]. No motorcycles, mopeds, or bicycles will be allowed on the road Sunday afternoon. We will be opening one or more gardens. . . . There will also be plantings of trees and borders from Rue Malher to Rue Duval. Then, up to Rue Vielle du Temple, there will be space for flowers (primarily roses) that will produce a beautiful botanical promenade. . . . Other plants will supplement roses, especially for the winter season. . . . Finally, several small trees will be carefully planted between Rue Duval and Rue Vielle du Temple. . . . Due to their liveliness, as well as their contribution to the monitoring of public space, businesses improve public space and limit destructive behavior, for example, illegal parking (e.g., the

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Global Neighborhoods pastry shop at the corner of Rue des Ecouffes, the bookstore, the restaurant on Rue des Hospitalières, etc.). However, use and development of public space must be done cooperatively with the rest of the street. Not all businesses provide the same benefits, and some provide nuisances (bad odors, garbage in the streets, garish signs, and unattractive terraces . . . ). To improve the public space, one must limit terraces from overcrowding the street, and they must be well constructed, with Rue Cloche Perce as an example. Garbage cans must be installed. There will also be a quality standard proposed to the businesspeople concerning the appearance of storefronts, further allowing our project to have positive impact. The new direction of traffic will no longer allow the juvenile high jinks that currently block traffic on narrow streets. Better use of space, the revitalization of space, the plantings, decorations, the presence of pedestrians in the center of the road will all remove the open, casual atmosphere of streets conducive to speeding. In addition, parking spaces for motorcycles, bicycles, and mopeds will be between Rue du Roi de Sicilie and Rue de Rivoli, at the entrance to Rues Malher, Pavée, Duval, and des Ecouffes. As a result, the parking for motorcycles, bicycles, and mopeds will be banned on Rue des Rosiers, Rue des Ecouffes, and Rue Ferdinand Duval. Open spaces are subject to crowding. Once present, crowds tend to grow and inspire acts of incivility, which together with traffic congestion negatively impact the Rue des Rosiers. It is therefore necessary to fill the space, especially at the corners of Ecouffes and Duval, with tall plantings (primarily roses), half-grown trees propped up by metal grills, a small fountain, border decorations.

The broader view of city hall concerning the initiative was expressed by a high-ranking employee in the following interview, which places the issue in a historical, sociological, and political context and explains the projected outcome of the plan and how it would benefit the residents, the city, and incoming tourists. The maintenance of the Jewish character is not only for tourists, but for the residents—because there are residents on Rue des Rosiers, and those residents suffer because there are very narrow roads, which are not easy to endure on a daily basis, because there are narrow sidewalks that do not facilitate the mobility of pedestrians or deliveries and encourage traffic jams


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and honking. We support the restoration of the neighborhood for the residents (so as to respond to the expectations of the residents), and those who like the neighborhood, who come to visit, but not only for those people. This is the reason why we have elaborated the project. . . . You have here the narrow part, the historical part of the Rue des Rosiers with very small sidewalks with borders on both sides. Our project is to end walking on the sidewalk in order to permit a more simple passage between the street and the sidewalk. The sidewalk is so narrow that one cannot stay on it all of its length. At the widest part, we will widen the sidewalks a little in order to plant a few trees. All of this has been part of long deliberations with the residents, the city’s technical infrastructure, and the urban infrastructure. Some people have talked about the two false things: “Pedestrianization” [piétonisation]. It was never a plan to make the Rue des Rosiers a pedestrian street, except on Sunday afternoons. That means that on Sunday afternoons, the Rue des Rosiers will be reserved for pedestrians, given that there is a considerable influx of people on that day and that cohabitation with cars is very dangerous. We hope that between 2:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M., the Rue des Rosiers will be closed to cars—only deliveries and the residents can come by car, and for all other people, it will be impossible to come by car to the Rue des Rosiers on Sundays. At all other times in the week, the Rue des Rosiers will remain accessible to cars. So there is no “pedestrianization” going on. On the contrary, a complete pedestrianization of the neighborhood would risk distorting [dénaturer] the Rue des Rosiers and mostly serve the interests of tourists. That would break the equilibrium between the residents, the traders, and the tourists. We wish for an equilibrium between all the components that would permit everyone to live a certain quality of life, as legitimately expected with trade, for the possibility of functioning with tourists and the people who come to shop and take walks in the neighborhood—and to do so in good condition. But one component should especially not be emphasized to the detriment of the other. So we maintain that equilibrium [between interest groups]. Some opponents have said that the project of urban development (restructuring of the sidewalks) is an attack against the Jewish heritage of the neighborhood. We find this really insulting and very dangerous, because when one makes this argument, the next step is pretty clear. Some people did not

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Global Neighborhoods hesitate to talk about anti-Semitism on the part of municipal authorities, which is really entirely false. I could give you an example of when in the gay neighborhood, when there was this same question of restructuring of the streets, Mrs. Bertinotti was called homophobic. Here again, the refusal of communitarianism is justified if we begin to make this mistake, and it’s particularly the very strong and dangerous arguments that are out of line.

This initiative of city hall for the remodeling of the Rue des Rosiers was opposed by the association of merchants (Association des Commerçants, Habitants, Propriétaires et Copropriétaires du IVème Arrondissement) and those it represents. Here, this dissident body presents the nature of its objections and the empirical basis on which they have made their argument. They remind the local administrators that such a policy already had been implemented elsewhere in Paris, and it had not produced the desired outcome from the perspective of the residents of these neighborhoods. We believe that such actions, as in other Paris neighborhoods where they were tried, will lead to a change in business conditions on the street: Some businesses will disappear, especially traditional ones, and new businesses will enter the street, which will lead to tension among local residents. We have seen this in other neighborhoods and heard from residents of the 4th Arrondissement, who have already lived through such turmoil. Furthermore, you, Ms. mayor, are aware of these conflicts, for example, the very strong opposition of businesspeople and residents of Rue des Francs-Bourgeois to the experiment of semipedestrian-only status for Rue Francs-Bourgeois. We would like to add that the traditional businesses that will be harmed by the changes are part of the history and culture of a neighborhood with a very strong cultural identity. These businesses are the bedrock of our community, and their commercial energy, along with increased traffic in the neighborhood, is in sync with and announces Jewish holidays. We must remember that the streets under consideration are part of the oldest Jewish neighborhood in the city, dating back almost ten centuries. Each year, about 100,000 people from all over the world meditate in these historic sites to pay homage to those who have gone before. This very identity is being challenged. This is the crux of the debate.


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Even if one experiments with “semi”-pedestrian-only streets, it does no good to remove the sidewalks. First of all, to remove the sidewalks signifies that the decision is irreversible. But also, previous experiences have shown that sidewalks offer safety for the pedestrian and their absence produces disorder, as one can see at Les Halles or St.-Séverin. Each camp recruited people to their side. Certain neighborhood organizations supported the mayor’s office, while religious residents who have gone to these shops for kosher food supported the dissenting merchants. A Chinese individual who operated a nutrition store in the Jewish quarter, for example, sides with the position of city hall: I think that the pedestrianization is a very interesting idea because it will lead to a new type of environment. Already certain business owners imagine cafés with patios laden with trees. One can imagine the interaction that will take place. I am somewhat doubtful though. It must be said that the concerns of the local residents are controlled by certain political parties. We encounter diverse interests, more or less drawn on [tiré] by the political parties (socialist, rightist). It’s a little complicated. Honestly, pedestrianization does not cause problems. I don’t see how one can distort a neighborhood by making it a pedestrian neighborhood. In contrast, a young Jewish lawyer who lived in the neighborhood and purchased his kosher meat from one of the shops sided with the merchants’ association. One can estimate that half of the Jewish community in France lives in the Parisian region, and there are not a lot of kosher things sold in the city. Le Marais is the only neighborhood where there are many kosher groceries, butcher shops, etcetera. Jews from far away come to shop in those stores. They come by car. It’s not just people who live in the neighborhood who will be affected. There are some of the clients who live in the neighborhood who come on foot, but one can estimate that half of the clientele comes from other Paris arrondissements or from the Parisian suburbs. If tomorrow the town hall project is achieved and the streets are turned into pedestrian zones and access to cars is forbidden, those people will no longer come. They will say, “It

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Global Neighborhoods is difficult to park, I am forced to park farther away. I’m forced to go into a parking lot and pay.” So they will tell themselves that instead of going to the Marais, they should go to other places. They will go to other places. There is a butcher shop here and another one there. Jewish shops are pretty few and far between. It’s pretty spread out. But we will go somewhere else. The profits of Jewish business owners will start plummeting. In addition, the owners of buildings who rent space to shopkeepers, they will say, “The sector is pedestrianized and, according to the law, it’s a factor of commercialization; that means normally it should bring more clients, so I, the owner, should be able to raise the rent.” Those businesses will lose clients and at the same time their rents will increase. Also, there are big fashion stores like Gucci, etcetera that will see those stores and tell them, “Me, I’d like to buy your business.” As you can see, all around the Jewish neighborhood, there are many big fashion designers. And if you add those three factors that I’ve just told you: decrease of profits, increase of rent, and mouthwatering offers from the big brands, those shopkeepers will give up in the end and will sell their businesses. What will happen? The small food businesses will close. The people who live in the neighborhood, why did they move into the neighborhood? Me, why did I come into the neighborhood? It’s because there are these Jewish stores, because I don’t have to go to other places to find things I need. As soon as those kosher businesses leave, Jews will desert the neighborhood. And if the Jewish residents leave the neighborhood, there are synagogues that will close. There are Jewish schools that will close. And little by little, the Jewish neighborhood will disappear. That’s why when we tell town hall that pedestrianization endangers the Jewish identity of the neighborhood, it’s not accusations of anti-Semitism, it’s the truth. If the project is achieved, the historically Jewish neighborhood of Paris will disappear. There are hundreds of streets in Paris. There are perhaps thousands. I don’t know the exact number. Of all those streets, there are three that constitute the Jewish neighborhood. It’s those three streets that town hall wants to pedestrianize. However, us, what we ask: “We have three streets. Leave us those streets. If you want to pedestrianize somewhere else, pedestrianize. But if you pedestrianize our streets, it will be the disappearance of the Jewish neighborhood on the island of Paris.”


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The Virtual Globalization of the Conflict Online, both French residents and foreign Jews debated the issue of the renovation of the Jewish quarter. These virtual discussions attest to the diasporic inscription of the neighborhood in the transnational network of Jewish sites and the interest of overseas residents in the issue. Of course, this virtual debate was supposed to influence the policy outcome of city hall one way or another. The following messages posted on http://www.quartierrosiers.org/soutien/ (accessed on December 23, 2003) or on http://www.antisemitisme.info/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t= 15&start=0&sid=483e46cbd (accessed on December 18, 2003) give a glimpse of the content of the virtual debate: I can no longer adapt to the constant noise of honking every morning in my street (I work at home). If the renovation of the quarter, by transforming certain streets for use only by pedestrians leads to ending this noise (a source of sound pollution), I am in favor of such a project. (Male, Paris, posted on 12/18/2003.) I could not imagine a better solution to resolve all the problems of my street. The renovation project can do nothing but good. You must not forget that there is nothing in the Torah that says “you must make a lot of noise with your car while you are trying to break the legs of passersby,” “destruction of the Jewish memory of the quarter.” Okay. Why haven’t you said anything when the Jewish baths of the twelfth century were being destroyed so that a parking garage could be constructed? Thanks, I am waiting with impatience to see you all in a quiet and green street. (Male, Rue des Rosiers, Paris, posted on 12/17/2003.) Residents of Quarter! I am for the project of renovation of the quarter. Thanks for your actions in this direction. (Male, Rue des Ecouffes, Paris, posted on 12/16/2003.) As one who often visits Rue des Rosiers, I would like to see a convivial, warm, clean, pleasant street and not to have to experience this feeling of aggressiveness. (Female, St. Maur, France, posted on 12/14/2003.) I am a resident of this neighborhood. I have to approve of the project for the renovation and beautification of the Rue des Rosiers and cross streets: less noise, more green, more comfort on Sunday: What more can we ask for? (Female, Paris, posted on 12/4/2003.)

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Global Neighborhoods I reside on Rue Ferdinand Duval, and I totally endorse the project, which visibly will turn my quarter into a more pleasant and attractive place. I cannot see how less traffic would impact the authenticity of the Rue des Rosiers? I would like for both Rue Ferdinand Duval and Rue des Ecouffes to be open only to pedestrians. (Chinese female, Paris, posted on 12/3/2003.) “Yes” for a pedestrian street and “no” to the infernal noise made by visiting vagabonds on scooters with their prolonged honking. It is an exaggeration to say that the small shops will be negatively affected by this project, since they depend on pedestrian tourists for their survival. Only these little junkies who circulate with speed on Sunday on their scooters in the neighborhood and bring out the raw nerves of everyone will be forced to change their destination. (Female, Rue des Rosiers, posted on 12/5/2003). On October 23, 2003, will the Council of Paris decree the expulsion of Jews from the Rue des Rosiers? . . . The Council of Paris is about to decree and organize the destruction of the Jewish quarter in downtown Paris, an exceptional neighborhood that dates back to the medieval era, often referred to as “Pletzl” or “St. Paul,” with an international reputation. . . . To save the Rue des Rosiers, to save an emblematic site of French Judaism, to save an essential element of the memory of all the Parisians, we must organize, protest, and defend our patrimony. (Posted from Israel on 10/15/2003). Hello, I could not find the Forum! Effectively we must save Rue des Rosiers. I am not from Paris. (Posted from the Bahamas on 10/15/2003). Hearing about the proposed destruction of the Jewish quarter makes me sick. Every time I am in Paris or waiting for a plane, I always stop by my root quarter, his king of falafel, Finkelstajn, the old Goldenberg, and others. (Posted from Aden, Yemen on 10/16/2003).

Although the conflict began as an offline interaction between city officials and some members of the neighborhood, it later became extended to such online discussions, clarifications, and protests. Both sides had their Web sites or chat rooms where adherents and opponents explained their positions and criticized the other side. With this online interaction, the debate acquired a global identity because some of the participants did not necessarily live in the neighborhood or were not even Jewish.


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Arguments presented offline were scrutinized and rejected online, thereby providing new ammunition for interface interactions. Some ideas that had been rejected offline begin a life of their own online; some ideas were discussed only online and never made it offline because they were only reactions to online opinions. This is the same way that some ideas expressed offline never made it online because they were not controversial propositions and were accepted by both camps. The online public sphere thus did not coincide with the offline public sphere in this debate. One was neighborhood based, while the other covered a global arena. One influenced the content of the other. One was made of people who knew or could know each other directly, while the other included strangers who lived in different worlds. While those offline spoke about how their daily experiences would be affected, those online tended to talk about past history, reminiscences of the neighborhood, and why it was important to leave it as was so that memories of the site as a heritage place could be revived. This virtual debate indicates that the controversy over the renovation of the Jewish quarter had not simply a local dimension through the intervention of local residents, but also a global dimension because of the participation of foreign Jews in the debate, siding either with the mayor’s office or with the local merchants who spearheaded the opposition. Each camp followed the virtual debate of the other side to gauge their standing or to prepare counterarguments to be presented offline. The online debate thus fed the offline debate. It is fair to say that these two dimensions complemented each other and that one cannot understand the effect of one without reference to the other. Foreign Jews intervened in the debate not as outsiders offering a balanced and cautionary argument to help moderate a difficult situation, but because they saw the quarter as part of the Jewish transnation. Some did it because they once resided there, others because it is the place they visited when they came to Paris, and still others because a portion of the memory of their family was buried there. Virtuality has made it possible for all of these individuals to be on the same page discussing one of the diasporic sites of the transnation. This shows one of the ways in which transglobal urbanism is constituted and explains the rationale used to justify intervention of foreigners in the politics of a local place.

A Top-Down Approach to Urban Renewal The various people interviewed at city hall made it clear that their approach was the opposite of what is being done by urban administrators

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in the United States; that is, facilitating the growth of “ethnic neighborhoods.” In their top-down approach, all neighborhoods are theoretically to be treated the same way and are seen through the same prism and, in turn, the general rules of neighborhood renovation developed by the city are to apply to all areas equally. For example, the same architectural constraints define what is allowed regarding the preservation of the cultural heritage of the buildings. One municipal official interviewed explained that “as soon as you want to modify a window, you have to ask for permission first in order to maintain the cultural heritage aspect. . . . All this tells you that there is no desire to go at it alone . . . to make of it a sort of recreational park that would be Jewish, homosexual, or Chinese, etcetera. . . . Not at all.” To reinforce that the modifications are about a team approach, and not the mayor’s personal agenda, he added, “as soon as one touches something in the arrondissement, the architect of the buildings of France, who is the person in charge of making sure the salvaging project is respected, gives his opinion. If that person agrees, it happens, if she doesn’t agree, it doesn’t happen.” The difference of opinion between city hall and its opponents on what effect the project would have on the neighborhood was not simply a difference of perception, but rather was a conflict over whether the renovation would be more advantageous for tourists or residents. As a city hall administrator put it: there is a strong will in the Fourth Arrondissement, where we have Notre Dame, Le Marais, Bobourg, Place des Vosges, the Jewish quarter, city hall, etcetera to have tourism under control and to maintain residential life in the center of Paris. It’s really true. But we have the will to maintain residential life and to conciliate tourism, commerce, and recreation, and we try to be careful that it doesn’t happen at the expense of residential life. City hall’s strategy of implementing policy that benefited the common good over the needs of an ethnic neighborhood was applied not only to urban issues, but also to social, environmental, and cultural issues. An advisor to the mayor said that “the mayor is opposed to any ‘ethnic policy’ that favors the survival of separate ethnic enclaves in the borough and prevents assimilation to French daily life. So nothing is done to create an ethnic neighborhood next to another ethnic neighborhood or to treat the question of urban renewal through a ‘Jewish angle,’ and next to it through a ‘homosexual angle,’ etcetera.”


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Both sides recognized that neighborhood change had been brought about by real estate speculation. The merchants believed this speculation was caused or enhanced by the policies of city hall, which they thought aimed to transform the neighborhood into a museum. For city hall, it was purely and simply a case of the free market at work. According to a city hall official: We have one difficulty in Paris—maybe it’s the same thing in other capitals—it’s that one notices the progressive disappearance of corner stores: That is, as soon as a business is sold, it is often bought by Chinese traders or others. This is less the case when it comes to us. It’s even stronger in other arrondissements or through big fashion billboards etcetera that have the means to acquire real estate in the center of Paris. The result is that we have a lot more difficulty finding a butcher or a baker. The problem is the same for the Jewish neighborhood, and for several decades, we have noticed the progressive disappearance of otherwise historical businesses, which constituted the particularity of the Rue des Rosiers and the surrounding neighborhood. There are fewer than before. What response can the municipality adopt with regard to this matter? It’s a difficult situation because in France, constitutionally, it’s part of the liberty of trade. One cannot prevent a Jewish trader from settling in a certain place. If you want to put thirteen identical businesses next to each other, that’s possible. As a municipality, we cannot forbid it. Either the city buys the buildings and rents them to whomever it wants, or the law of free markets is applied here in the same way that it is applied everywhere else. And this permits us to have a certain amount of control in the matter. It’s a difficulty. We cannot, as a municipality, say that Jewish businesses will remain in the Jewish neighborhood. If tomorrow there is a Syrian or an Arab who wants to settle there, he can. There was a big polemic five or six years ago when McDonald’s wanted to settle in the Rosiers neighborhood. And it was not the town that opposed this, because it did not have the means—it was the residents. And after the polemic, which included the petitions and support of certain elected persons, such as Dominique Bertinotti, who was in the opposition and supported the residents, McDonald’s was not able to settle there. To gain a foothold in the community, the mayor has created her own association with members of the neighborhood who support her

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project. They posted fliers on their doors and maintained a Web site to recruit sympathizers. It was an attempt at neutralizing individuals and groups who were against the urban renewal project and to sway neighborhood opinion to welcome the renovation policy.

A Bottom-Up Approach to Urban Renovation The bottom-up approach in this case was more static because it argued that the change proposed by city hall was likely to cause imbalance in the neighborhood and, ultimately, would lead to the death of the Jewish quarter. In the residents’ view, renovation would accelerate the invasion of the bohemian and tourist crowds, the replacement of the population, and the disappearance of mom-and-pop shops that characterized the identity of the ethnic neighborhood. As the president of the merchants’ association put it: It’s not only tourist-centered businesses that one must make of us. One should not make museums of us, where people come to see where nobody lives any longer. . . . The [restoration] work that they are proposing reflects the authorities’ desire, not the population’s. The semipedestrianization that they are proposing to us is, in fact, a real pedestrianization that they want to give us, because when the sidewalks are removed and a central sewer [canivau] is put in place and we have smelly streets, and it is us that are going to live on them. Mrs. Bertinotti will benefit from a project that is hers, and not ours. And tomorrow that will bring advantages and inconveniences. We are only told about the advantages, that flowers will be planted on the street, but we are not told what tomorrow’s problems will be: Monoactivity [monoactivité], drugs, thieves, squatters, people in the streets, bars, restaurants, noise—all things that people do not want. It is the people who live on top that must decide now. Now we are going to live in streets that will no longer belong to us. We have chosen to live in the Fourth Arrondissement for its conviviality, its proximity, not for the difficult situation that we have today. All of our street parking spaces will be taken away. Our clients will not be able to come buy their merchandise. Our people want to enter commercial activity—there are not only butcher shops, there are bookstores, [money] lenders, deli owners [charcutiers]—all of this will be modified. So Jewish shopkeepers will also be negatively affected. They are chased


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away, forced to leave, offered gold hens. However, there is a quality of life today. The Fourth is being “pushed up” because of the terrible real estate speculation. To give more weight to their argument, some longtime residents compared their experience in the neighborhood with that of city hall bureaucrats, who come and go. As one resident put it, “We are both interested in the same subject, but for Mrs. Bertinotti, it’s not a subject that she lives. On her part, it’s a technical intervention. For us, it’s our life. It’s our neighborhood.” They saw the plan as reflecting the wishes of city hall employees more than the desires of the Jews. In fact, the mayor’s office did not dispute that. It’s absolutely normal that city hall and the merchants would propose two conflicting approaches to the problem, top-down and bottom-up. City hall clearly said that they were not taking a communitarian approach because, if they did, other ethnic groups would say that “that’s what we want.” They didn’t want to enter the game where the community indicates what it wants and defines the politics of city hall. As soon as things were put under the rubric of immediate experience, however, the variables changed. The Jewish merchants were more capable of projecting the future ramifications and consequences of such a project. To corroborate this point, the president of the merchants’ association said: We have been living on this street for forty years. We know its logic. Her [the mayor], she’s been here for one year, and she wants to change everything. . . . She is not interested in her reelection, because she’s aiming for the senate. No answer. But we have places of worship [lieux de culte] here. If tomorrow nobody comes to the neighborhood, our ceremonial areas will disappear, our soul will disappear, and so will our religion. It’s a historic part of the city of Paris. It’s one of the historical landmarks of the city of Paris. It’s been here for more than one thousand years. It was named Rebeka [Rue des Rosiers]. The Rue Ferdinand Duval used to be named the Rue aux Juifs. There was the Hotel aux Juifs. Today, if you pass the first part of the Rue des Rosiers, where there used to be food stores, now clothing stores have settled in. This enabled certain older populations to retire, since they were offered more money than they would have ever earned in their lifetime for their businesses, and this induced them to leave. They were offered a million francs. They would never have made this much money. The businesses that took their place have closed.

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Global Neighborhoods The businesses have changed hands eleven times. The clothing stores are not surviving. They cannot survive alone. The Jewish food businesses, for their part, can survive. If the Jewish part leaves, what will remain on this street? If there isn’t this Jewish atmosphere, what will remain here? Franchise stores and bars. We won’t be able to have terraces.

The plan’s opposition could not provide an alternative plan. Rather, they could only stress the potential negative consequences of the mayor’s initiative. They believed that the stores they operated would be the first to be eliminated and that this would necessarily lead to the disappearance of synagogues and oratories and eventually the last vestiges of the Jewish quarter. A young Jewish lawyer who once a week visited the quarter to purchase kosher meat said the following: The Paris town hall has a vision: It’s to turn the neighborhood into a museum, to bring tourists to the area. In their statements, they say that that’s not what they’re doing, but in practice, it’s the result that one must take into account. In practice, it’s exactly what’s needed. But, sir, when you close the roads to vehicles and when you prevent life from entering the streets, parking zones are suppressed. Who are those roads made for? They are for the people who like to walk, or go out. It’s going to be areas for going out, for pleasure, for extranormal life. It’s going to be for night, but not for the day. And all of the factors involved in the commercializing of the street will change. Life will begin at ten in the evening and end at three in the morning, and people will no longer want to live on top of stores, because people will say that it’s even noisier than before. The first trashcan is for boxes, the second trashcan for the dogs’ waste, and the third for the bottles. Parisians will come play music, accordion, knives, bells, and the streetwalkers and everyone [else] will bring their nuisances. And to think there are those who believe that a pedestrian street is for serenity and tranquility! They say no cars, no horns. But there will be other things that are even worse than cars and horns: nuisances, drugs, security problems, all incidents caused by a population that is not of the neighborhood who will come from the other areas and leave right away after doing damage. Who will suffer from this change? History will be marked by making the neighborhood or its soul disappear in the interest of turning it into a museum, a “touristification” of sorts. They


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will have the benefit of having changed the neighborhood, and we will have disappeared. Such dissidents conceived of urban renovation as a “euphemism for gentrification,”6 and the opposition of the Jewish merchants to renovation must be seen in light of the fast-paced gentrification they had been observing in the neighborhood. There had been both commercial gentrification, with the establishment of stores that catered to a non-Jewish population, which transformed the Jewish business corridor into a multicultural business agglomeration with Chinese, French, Indian, Sephardic, and Ashkenazi stores, and demographic gentrification, with the encroachment of the gay neighborhood of Paris into the Jewish quarter. The gentrification of the neighborhood had been an ongoing occurrence that indeed had undermined the Jewish character of the site. Juliet Carpenter and Loretta Lees note that “postwar outmigration to the suburbs [means that] in Le Marais the working classes were moving to suburban public, rather than private, housing.” It is therefore not in dispute that there had been a disappearance of Jewish business and shops and the gentrification of the quarter. How to renovate without accelerating this double movement was the troubling question that generated much passion from both sides of the debate.

“Regulative” Versus “Generative” Planning Urban planning seldom meets the approval of all of the concerned population, but more often than not is the result of the decision of the city government. To oppose the renovation of the neighborhood because of the projected negative effects it will have, the coalition of grassroots associations that spoke on behalf of the community transformed themselves into a parapolitical organization to enhance their effectiveness.7 This form of grassroots activism was marked by an effort to develop coalitions that sought the aid of public intellectuals, former members of the neighborhood who live abroad, politicians who support the cause, and foreign journalists who might influence public opinion, further, giving this local issue a global voice.8 However, the data indicate that urban planning most often is imposed from above and the process is justly referred to as “coercive.”9 In the controversy analyzed here, a classic case of regulative, top-down versus generative, bottom-up or “community-driven” planning,10 the predictive value of previous studies is confirmed: Despite the protests

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registered by the Jewish merchants and religious Jews to preserve the memory and ethnic identity of the place, in January 2005, the mayor of the Fourth Arrondissement began the first phase of the implementation of the renovation plan. The public works projects necessary to complete the construction scheme were supposed to be completed in two years.

Global Inscription The inscription of the global in this local site was achieved through the participation of overseas people in the debate; through the expansion of the network by including outsiders to support the cause; through online communication generated by this controversy; through the tourists who were affected one way or the other; through overseas Jewish communities and organizations that remained abreast of developments and offered their moral support; and through reportage published in foreign daily newspapers such as the New York Times and monthly newspapers published in various diasporic sites. The interest of the Jewish diaspora in the resolution of this problem attests to the way in which this neighborhood has been inscribed in the network of Jewish sites as something that belongs as much to the city as to the greater diasporic network. Renovation indirectly affected not only the local people, but also people overseas whose memories valorized the site because they or their parents once lived there. Not only did city hall and the neighborhood residents view the effects of renovation differently, but they also constructed the global public that was affected by it differently as well. For city hall, the global public was reduced mostly to the tourists, while, for the residents, it was both the tourists and the Jewish diasporic communities dispersed throughout the globe. Nevertheless, in this instance, the values and interests of the nation-state, as represented by metropolitan institutions and politicians, prevailed over the efforts of the globalized local ethnic community. Despite the globalization of the local in defense of its uniqueness, the local here was inexorably being assimilated into the matrix of metropolitan Paris. The implications of this assimilation will be explored in the chapter that follows.

Chapter 8

Heritage Tourism The Jewish Quarter as a Theme Park

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he notion of an ethnic neighborhood as a tourist attraction has a plural significance and history because of the many different meanings that this term encapsulates. Foreign tourists visit a place because of its exotic splendor; cities maintain or transform specific places for that purpose; the members, institutions, and culture of a diasporic group can bring their identity to such a place; and members of a specific ethnic group sometimes come from the homeland or other diasporic sites to visit the neighborhood and explore their cultural roots. The first component of the notion involves the traditional portrayal of the outside visitor—one who is not a member of the ethnic group and does not live in the neighborhood, but is attracted to a place because of its reputation for being different from the mainstream community as an outpost of a national homeland. The second component involves a city’s policy either to keep the ethnic identity of a neighborhood by preventing the complete Westernization of its architectural style, as in the case of Chinatown in San Francisco, or to accelerate the neighborhood’s modernization by redesigning the shape of the streets, as is the case of the projected renovation of the Jewish quarter in Paris. The third concerns the history of the implantation of the group in the neighborhood, the institutions they have established for their survival, and the subculture they have developed in their adaptation to the mainstream urban social landscape. Here the focus is on the local people who have become the object and subject of the tourist interest. The fourth component involves the issue of heritage tourism. This category includes those who previously lived in the neighborhood and have come back to visit friends or relatives, those who are simply curious about this certain node in the network of sites occupied by the group, and those who visit in order to attend a cultural event, summer course, festival, conference, film, or museum. 137

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Tourism is not essential to the Jewish diasporic community, but has become intrinsic in the everyday operation of the neighborhood because of the residents’ reliance on tourists to generate revenue by buying products, using restaurants, visiting cultural centers, and contributing to the social life of the neighborhood through their very presence. The shops make a large portion of their profit from transactions with tourists, and store owners depend on this money to balance their cash flows. This means store owners have to meet the needs of the tourists by internationalizing their output and selling goods that tourists request; by opening their shops on days such as Sunday, when most tourists visit the neighborhood; and by having employees who can speak more than just the national language in order to interact with the outsiders. In the process, these shops have become global entities through the clientele they attract, the products they sell, and the international reputations they acquire. Neighborhood restaurants have become global entities, as well. They have had to develop a number of dishes, including Jewish specialties from Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Israel, to meet the tastes of any potential tourist. Upon entering such a restaurant, it is common to find oneself socializing with American, Italian, Israeli, British, Mexican, Moroccan, and Algerian Jewish patrons. Tourist patronage is the driving force behind the culinary traditions of these restaurants. Tourists have contributed to the production of the daily or weekly atmosphere of the neighborhood with the way they negotiate the use of public space with insiders. For example, on Sunday afternoons, a resident Orthodox Jewish group has representatives on the corner of Rue des Rosiers and Rue Fernand Duval in Paris preaching the gospel of Orthodoxy and pushing upon any prospective convert the paraphernalia they traditionally wear. Of course, during this time, groups of people congregate around this corner to be amused by such things. Walking on sidewalks is problematic on Sundays because it becomes impossible to use these narrow passages and not bump into others. Some residents prefer not to venture out at all on Sundays to avoid confronting the crowd, as reported in the previous chapter. Some businesses operate exclusively for the benefit of tourists, and they further contribute to attracting tourists to the neighborhood. For example, in summer courses offered in the neighborhood, the clientele are almost exclusively foreigners. Sometimes these are organized abroad by an American university professor or a nonprofit organization that brings students to the neighborhood for a specific period of time. Some bring older tourists to visit the site as a stop before moving on to another location.

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Heritage Tourism and Globalization The scholarly literature on heritage tourism has taken various twists and turns in attempt to account for the multifaceted aspects of this phenomenon.1 I find it necessary to summarize briefly the content of this literature so that I can explain the rationale of the alternative approach I am using in an effort to further elaborate the argument that the European Jewish quarter is a global diasporic city. Some authors focus on how tourism is a catalyst for the development of ethnic entrepreneurship2 or on how the preservation of historical sites to promote tourism is selective and serves as a panacea by the state to impose a new hierarchical order of sites.3 Some focus on a tension that tourism has produced between state practices of preserving the cultural heritage and consumerist behaviors shaped by market forces,4 how culture entrepreneurs commoditize sites for tourist consumption,5 and on how ethnic groups contribute to the commoditization of their cultural heritage by manufacturing and selling native objects to tourists.6 Others focus on how tourism has been a positive contributing factor in the creation of employment for the ethnic community,7 how local conflicts have emerged as a result of the contest by the ethnics against the government’s appropriation of, symbolic claims to, and misrepresentation of the site,8 or how tourism has affected the ethnics’ perception of their cultural heritage.9 There are studies of how a transnational organization such as UNESCO has played a central role in the restoration and preservation of some ethnic sites and in converting them into tourist destinations,10 and how by tourism diasporic tourists have achieved multiple understandings of their relationship to the homeland.11 Studies have focused on how interdependency characterizes the relationship between heritage tourism and the local community12 and on how locals and tourists have attributed different meanings to the site, showing how, for the former, it revives cultural memory of the past, while, for the latter, it is a commoditized theme park.13 This chapter focuses on different aspects of heritage tourism: the globalization of the enclave to which it is a contributing factor. To do so, the chapter examines how tourism has contributed to the circulation of bodies and goods, how it reinscribes the local in the global, how it reinforces the double meaning of cultural heritage as belonging to both the state and the network of Jewish communities, how it causes the rise of a global group of ethnic entrepreneurs that feeds the locale with tourists and facilitates and sustains a global business industry—travel agencies, tour guides, organizers of cultural events to

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entertain the tourists, and providers of local services such as restaurants, stores, and museums. It also examines how tourism further contributes to the transnationalization and globalization of the security system for the protection of the neighborhood and how it feeds and sustains the routinization of the globalization of ethnic temporalities.

Foreign, Israeli, and Diasporic Jewish Tourists The foreign tourists who visit the Jewish quarter are numerous, and the majority come during the high holy days, or on weekends—as we have noted, particularly on Sunday. They visit the Jewish quarter as they do other sites in Paris, because they were already in the area, but not because they have any particular interest in it, because it is part of the network of Jewish sites they have selected to visit, or because they have become aware of a special attraction in the area, such as a cultural event or a historic event, such as the bombing of the Goldenberg Restaurant in Paris in 1982. Jews from throughout the world come to visit the Jewish neighborhood.14 Some do so as a pilgrimage to their former place of residence, for example, individuals who had lived for a number of years on the Rue des Rosiers and later migrated to the United States, London, or Israel. In some cases, they still have family and friends in the neighborhood or have come to revisit their childhood home. In other cases, they come for business, to use facilities such as the Jewish library, or to attend the annual meeting of a Jewish benevolent association. “Heritage tourism” is the term that best describes the pilgrimage of Jews to an important historical site of Jewish life. What makes these sites attractive to Jews is their integration into Jewish historical memory as distinct nodes in a network of transnational sites. A Sephardic woman who has observed the movement of these pilgrims and who has herself visited such sites reflects on the meaning of these occurrences: I experience it as people who come to this neighborhood for a Jewish milieu. I have visited several cities in Europe where people do not wear the yarmulke on their head. Not in a single neighborhood. In those neighborhoods, only synagogues remain. People don’t even dare go out with the yarmulke. Here in Paris, we still dare to go out with the yarmulke on the head, or the wig or slightly traditional outfit for the women. I would not want this object to disappear or reach the level of those

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neighborhoods completely devoid of meaning, where one sees only one synagogue standing and that’s it. The locals in a place of pilgrimage have developed their own views of Jewish tourists, distinguishing between those who come to visit friends, to attend services at the synagogue, or to use the stores. In other words, they distinguish between those who spend money in local establishments and those who don’t. American tourists are considered a distinct group. The head of a nonprofit Jewish organization who is living in the Jewish quarter in Paris makes the following comment: From time to time, there are American Jews and others who come here as a place of pilgrimage. It’s absolutely true: Those who come to the neighborhood, it’s for pilgrimage. But I must say that I think that American Jews don’t totally understand. They have said that the French government is anti-Semitic. The current anti-Semitism does not come from France. I don’t want to generalize. We stroll down the streets and we see graffiti that says, “Jews to the ovens.” You know, for us, it is very difficult to stand. Deep inside it is, this hate that forces us to be Jewish. This pilgrimage to a site may simply be a return to one’s authentic culinary traditions. The craving for a taste of Yiddish food is one of the incentives for the visit. According to an Ashkenazi Jewish businessman who owns a textile store in the vicinity of the Jewish quarter: The neighborhood is a site of pilgrimage: That is part of the nostalgia. Today we are a rare generation to have lived, we are rooted in war. We are very nostalgic about writing—it’s the last living testimony of what our parents went through. For this reason of remembrance, today, people go to the Rue des Rosiers. They want to eat something specifically Yiddish. Yiddish as a culinary thing has not made a splash [fait fureur] with the greater public. So you have the cuisine of other groups such as kabobs (Turks), pizza (Italians), couscous (Moroccans). . . . Ethnic restaurants enjoy a good deal of popularity in France. While the Jewish quarter in Paris is largely inhabited by Jews, the tourists who venture to visit Scheunenviertel in Berlin soon find that very few people of Jewish descent are still living in this quarter. As we

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have seen, the buildings and other historic sites have been renovated, but the people are absent. According to the director of the Jewish Cultural Center: The neighborhood is reconstructed now. It is a very good, nice place. There are enough Gentile prostitutes who invade the main street in the quarter in the evening. It is two different groups of people coming. The tourists are coming for the Jewish sites, which are not actually here. They do walks through the Jewish quarter, but there is nothing to see. This is a building where Jews used to live. This is a building where this and that was. Sometimes you have a plaque. Mostly it is talking. And then you have the cemetery with one tombstone. I would say that if I were a tourist, I would be disappointed. On the other hand, it is a very lively area with a lot of great restaurants, expensive shops for the nineteen-year-olds that have enough money to spend on these things. The only things you don’t really see are the Jews. We see the Jewish visitors from time to time being taken through the area. Here you do have what we call the Jewish theater, but it’s really Russian immigrants who do what they think is klezmer music or things like that—again that are for a non-Jewish audience.

Theme Park The transformation of the Jewish neighborhood in Paris or in Berlin into a theme park is a recent phenomenon, part of the general strategy of selling the metropolis. For the past decade, city administrations have developed various schemes to attract the tourist dollar. In order to make their town more marketable, city officials have encouraged tour groups to add the ethnic neighborhood to their list of places to see. In most cases, this has created a new set of problems. While local merchants approve of this strategy because of the profit they can make selling to tourists, as we already have shown, longtime residents are less enthusiastic about this plan. The economic benefit is real, and it feeds both the pockets of the merchants and the city coffers because of the extra tax it generates. However, as the complaints detailed in previous chapters show, tourism creates new constraints in terms of traffic jams, the crowds of onlookers, architectural restrictions to maintain the neighborhood’s ethnic look, without which tourists would not be attracted, and in some cases, new zoning restrictions.

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The term “theme park” implies the maintenance or even the creation of exoticism. In a sense, it is the ultimate phase of the incorporation of the ethnic community into the city because it elevates the neighborhood to the rank of other neighborhoods as constitutive of the city, and not as the plague of it, as the neighborhood was frequently seen before. But this incorporation is only for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation occurs when the money made is not used to upgrade the facilities of the neighborhood, but rather to fund improvements in other parts of the city. Exoticism is situated in a geographical context, and its maintenance requires some harmonization with the surrounding environment. In Paris, the making of a theme park entails appropriating the neighborhood into a larger area that is also constructed as theme park. It is like constructing an ethnic theme park inside a mainstream theme park. A Jewish businessman offers the following comment: The town hall is making big efforts to maintain businesses here. The Third Arrondissement is the neighborhood that has lost the most salaried employees because of the high cost of housing. Previously, it was a flourishing commercial neighborhood, and work spaces [ateliers] could be found in the old houses. Today, everything has changed. It did not become a neighborhood through a touristic vocation, and yet people want to make it into a targeted tourist site [tourisme de cible] because Le Marais corresponds to one of the most glorious periods of France during the administration of Louis XIV and the French Revolution. It represents something that is very strong. Its centrality gives it the importance of “Old Paris.” One finds here some old private hotels [hotels particuliers] of Paris that have been remodeled. They were, at the time, owned by princes and the French nobility and were transformed into apartments that have been valorized and transformed into museums and luxury homes. The neighborhood and Paris will become a tourist city, a city of lights. People will have tried to bourgeoisify this city even more.

Plaques and Tourism Plaques have been placed on various sites in the Jewish quarters of Scheunenviertel and Le Marais intended to commemorate those who died during the Holocaust. They are there because of local associations that have pressured the municipal authorities to participate in

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this public commemoration. These plaques refer to either individuals or groups and have been exhibited in these quarters only in the past decade. In Paris, they single out individual Gentiles who helped save Jewish lives and groups of Jews who were deported from the quarter and perished during the Holocaust. In Berlin, the emphasis is placed on individual Jews and families. While in Paris the plaques are all placed on the walls of houses or buildings, in Berlin, most plaques are on the ground at the entrance of a house or residential apartment complex. Sometimes passersby step on them, unaware of their existence. We next provide examples of the content of such plaques. While strolling in the Jewish neighborhood in Paris, one cannot help being aware of the existence of the plaques commemorating deportees during World War II that are posted on buildings in the neighborhood. Since the streets are narrow and most people visit the neighborhood on foot, they naturally stop to read the plaques. Three such plaques on three different public buildings will give the reader a sense of their content.

Ecole de Travail [vocational school], Rue des Rosiers Dedicated to the memory of the principal, the personnel and the students of this school, arrested in 1943 and 1944 by the Vichy police and the Gestapo, deported and exterminated at Auschwitz because they were born Jewish.

Rue des Hospitalières St Gervais, Ecole Primaire [elementary school] 165 Jewish children from this school were deported to Germany during World War II and were exterminated in the Nazi camps. Do not forget.

College [high school] Franceroy Couperin, Allée des Justes Arrested by the police of the Vichy government, accomplices of the Nazi occupier, more than 11000 children were deported from France from 1942 to 1944 and assassinated at Auschwitz because they were born Jewish. More than 500 children were living in the 4th Arrondissement, among them, students of this school. Let us never forget them. Figure 8.1 Jewish Plaques in Paris

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During an interview with an advisor to the mayor on local democracy, he informed me of a project to place plaques on all of the schools in the Fourth Arrondissement where Jewish children were taken and deported to the camps: “We put a plaque on a wall at every school remembering all of the Jewish children who were deported during World War II, to commemorate the memory of these children. It’s the policy of the mayor of Paris, repeated by other arrondissement mayors, and on the demand of the Joseph Migueret Committee, that has caused the undertaking of this project.” In the neighborhood, three types of plaques can be seen posted on the walls of specific houses. Plaques for the children deported from the schools, for a principal who hid children to prevent the Gestapo from capturing them, and for a heroic figure of or fighters in the resistance movement. In this last case, next to the plaque is also placed either the French flag or flowers. The Ashkenazi Jew who heads the organization that put plaques on schools’ walls commented on the philosophy behind this practice: The plaques: They are a work of memory. On all of the schools we place plaques. It’s in memory of the children who were deported to the concentration camps. Those children attended those schools. There are children who were taken out of classes. These plaques have been here since last year. There are plaques for the deportees in general and others for the children that were pulled out of classes and deported. There are plaques where there were resistance Jews who fell, killed by the Germans. All of the Jewish schools in the neighborhood have a plaque. This summer, I was with the mayor for the placing of plaques. Very interesting. . . . You will go in front of the stadium, which is in the Eleventh Arrondissement, there is a plaque that recalls the internment, the gathering of Jews in front of the stadium before they were put on the bus that took them to the concentration camp in Drancy. The idea of putting up plaques has not been a priority in either Stamford Hill or Golders Green in London because these neighborhoods became predominantly Jewish only after World War II. Individual Jews from these neighborhoods are not known to have been deported to Hitler’s concentration camps, as in the cases of Le Marais and Scheunenviertel. However, there is some genuine interest to identify Jewish buildings and places of worship in Whitechapel, the nineteenth-century and early

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twentieth-century Jewish ghetto in London’s East End. A middle-aged Jewish woman who manages a Jewish social service agency in Golders Green provided the following comments on why plaques have not been at the top of the agenda for the community: Actually, this is one of the things that came out of the work I was doing. A gentleman who has taken some of the work has been very keen on placing plaques in some parts of the East End. Currently, they do not exist very much. He has quite a battle on his hands to convince people that these places should be preserved and that plaques should be put up. He has this idea of preserving buildings, preserving this, preserving that, and he cannot understand why the wealthy members of the Jewish community are not putting their money toward preservation. But there is only so much money to go around. If you were to ask me, would I prefer a wealthy Jew, who can afford it, to save a building or whatever in the East End or to put that money into a residential home for Jewish elderly, I would say that I prefer the second option. I want him to put that money toward the Jewish disabled, toward Jewish education. I think it is better to help the living. What is gone is gone. Yes, this is our heritage. We should not lose our heritage, but the living are more important. Memorial plaques are found throughout Scheunenviertel, at the cemetery, the site where the Jewish senior citizens’ home was located, the park, on the synagogue walls, and on the ground at the entrances of some houses or apartment buildings. One is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the crime committed by the Nazis. These plaques are presented here to illustrate a central aspect of the Holocaust, the vicious destruction of Jewish lives. The following two plaques are found on the wall of the synagogue facing Oranienburgerstrasse. Fifty years after the desecration of This Synagogue, and forty-five years after its destruction, according to our will and with the support of many friends in our country and around the world, this building will be revived. Berlin Jewish Community 9 November 198815 Figure 8.2 The Old Synagogue

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5 September 1866—5 September 1966 Diese Synagoge ist 100 Jahre alt und wurde am 9 November 1938 in Der Kristallnacht von den Nazis in Brand gesteckt Während des 2. Weltkrieges 1939–1945 wurde sie im Jahre 1943 durch Bombenangriffe zerstört Die Vorderfront dieses Gotteshauses soll für alle Zeiten eine Stätte der Mahnung und Erinnerung bleiben VERGESST ES NIE Judische Gemeinde Von Grob-Berlin Der Vorstand September 1966 Figure 8.3 Neue Synagoge Unlike the Jewish quarter in Paris, where plaques are posted on the walls of houses and buildings in which Jewish people lived who were deported, in Scheunenviertel, smaller plaques are placed on the ground in front of houses with the names of their former residents who were murdered in the concentration camps. A sample of such plaques follows.

Rosenthaler Strasse 40/41 Hier Wohnte Uri Davidsohn JG 1943 Deportiert 1943 Theresien Stadt Ermordet in Auschwitz Hier Wohnte Victor Schneebaum JG 1941 Deportiet 1943 Ermordet in Auschwitz

Hier Wohnte Hermann Schneebaum JG 1906 Deportiet 1943 Ermordet in Auschwitz

Hier Wohnte Thea Schneebaum JG 1906 Deportiet 1943 Ermordet in Auschwitz

Hier Wohnte Jenny Schneebaum Geb. Brandorowitsch JG 1908 Deportiet 1943 Ermordet in Auschwitz

Figure 8.4 German Jews Deported to the Concentration Camps

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Other street plaques provide a more elaborate explanation of the event that took place in a specific location during the Holocaust: Rosenthaler Strasse In diesem Haus befand sich die Blindenwerkstatt von Otto Weidt Hier arbeiteten in den Jahren 1940 bis 1945 vornehmlich Jüdische Blinde und Taubstumme. Unter Einsatz seines Lebens beschützte Weidt sie und tat alles, um sie vor dem sicheren Tod zu retten. Mehrere Menschen Verdanken ihm das Uberleben Figure 8.5 A Holocaust Plaque Der Judische Friedhof in Der Grosse Hamburger Strasse In the years after the beginning of World War II, the Nazi’s gruesome will to destroy led not only to the ruin and total leveling of the graveyard area, but also to the community buildings being turned into prisons and the graveyard serving as a prison yard. In 1941, the Gestapo converted the former home for elderly people of the Jewish community into an assembly camp for deportations. The graveyard was cleared and used by security guards as a sports ground for the assembly camp. In the last days of the war it was used again as a burial ground for 2,427 war victims. The old Jewish graveyard in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse was placed back into the care of the Jewish community in September 1948. Since 1974 the graveyard is a public green and a listed monument. Figure 8.6 The Old Jewish Cemetery Hamburg Strasse An dieser Stelle befand sich das erste Altenheim der Jüdischen Gemeinde. 1942 verwandelte die Gestapo es in ein Sammellager für Jüdische Bürger 55000 Berliner Juden vom Säugling bis zum Greis wurden in die KZ-Lager Auschwitz und Theresienstadt verschleppt und bestialisch ermordet. Vergesst Das Nie Wehret Dem Krieg Hutet Den Frieden Figure 8.7 Old People’s Home as Collection Point

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Jewish Culture Days and Weeks Throughout Europe, distinct days and weeks are earmarked to celebrate Jewish history and the contribution of the ethnic community to the culture and economic development of their country of residence. These events are occasions that bring a number of tourists to these neighborhoods and foster an awareness of the role of Jews in Europe of the past and present. They also give an opportunity to organize various activities geared toward showcasing Jewish traditions, which attract tourists and non-Jews to the locale. These festivities are organized differently in the four neighborhoods studied and are more visible in Berlin and Paris than in London. They are celebrated on different days and dates as well, to allow border-crossing visits. For example, Jewish Heritage Day in London is in September, while in Berlin Judische Kulturtage is in November. National Holocaust Memorial Day (referred to in Paris as Journée Nationale à la Mémoire des Victimes des Crimes Racistes et Antisémites de l’Etat Français et d’Hommage aux ‘Justes’ de France) also is celebrated at different times in these countries. In Paris, it is in July and London in January. A Jewish informant in Golders Green explains the origin of National Holocaust Memorial Day in London and its importance from the perspective of a member of the community: “We have no problem with the world in this country. We now have in January a day called National Holocaust Memorial Day. This is not only a Jewish thing, but a national thing. This has come about in the last five years. We now have a date that is marked not in the Jewish calendar, but in the English calendar, as Holocaust Holiday.” In Germany, because of the separation of the Jewish communities in East and West Berlin prior to reunification, it was not possible to hold a Jewish culture event at the same time and place. Andreas Nachama provides some details on what happened in the community until up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall: “A festival of ‘Jewish Cultural Days’ has been taking place annually since 1987. Before reunification the West Berlin Festival coincided with East Berlin’s ‘Days of Yiddish Culture.’ The two festivals were combined after the fall of the wall, and the Judische Kulturtage are still going strong.”16 The program developed by municipal authorities to invite former Jewish Berliners to visit the city began in 1969, according to the official in charge. Nachama gives a more precise picture on the social context that led to the enactment of this policy. He notes, “to celebrate the community’s bicentennial in the early 1970’s then-Mayor Klaus Schuetz inaugurated a program in which Berlin’s former Jews were invited back

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to the city (at Berlin’s expense) for a week’s visit.”17 The idea was to invite back Jews and so-called Communists who were forced to leave the city during World War II. Of course, the majority of the guests so far have been Jews. The senate of Berlin even invites those who are unable to afford to come on their own. Twice a year, one hundred people (including former Berliners and partners) are the guests of the city for one week. Their airfare and hotel accommodations for seven days and nights are paid for by the city. The rationale is that it is beneficial to bring more tourists to the city as part of the program to present Berlin as a city of yesterday and today. The guests are provided with a boat trip and sightseeing and are taken to the Jewish Museum, cultural events, and the Jewish cemeteries. Guests select the activities in which they want to take part. For example, some of them do not want to visit the cemeteries. Since the inception of the program until 2004, when I was doing research for this book, 33,000 people have participated, half of them former Berliners. Depending on what month the Jewish holiday of Passover occurs, they usually come in April and August or May and August, so their trip does not interfere with observing Passover. Half of these guests are hosted by Berliners who volunteer to accommodate the visitors. Guests choose whether they want to stay in a hotel or in a Berliner’s home. The program spends 410,000 euros per year to cover the expenses of the guests. About 40,000 euros are used for printing, marketing, and general publicity. Between 1969 and 2004, the city spent 50,000,000 Euros on this program. The program is very well known among Jewish communities worldwide. German embassies have also served to relay this information, and the program has no problem finding guests, since it requires no monetary expenses from participants. Various informants commented on the Jewish Culture Week in Berlin. A middle-aged office holder at the Jewish Documentation Center in West Berlin says: It is financed by the senate of Berlin, and not by the Jewish community. The city wants the existence of some Jewish cultural life. They did not want non-Jews to organize it, so they put the project in Jewish hands. They say: Here is the money and the purpose, just organize the festival of Jewish culture once a year [for two weeks]. It is for all people. It is supposed to make the presence of Jewish life in Berlin more tangible. It is open to everyone: people in Berlin, tourists. They learn about Jewish life. They have a night of open houses at

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the synagogues, mostly for tourists and non-Jews to learn something about Jewish culture. The theme is always connected to different Jewish places in the world. The organizer of the Jewish Culture Week whose office is located at the Jewish Documentation Center explains what it consists of: Concerts, exhibitions, dances, theater performances, Jewish jazz, classics, and klezmer (very popular). Every year it has a theme: California, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Odessa, France, New York. It is an international event. It is in German, Hebrew, English, Yiddish, Russian. Once a year, events are held in November in community centers and theater halls spread all over the city. The Jewish Community and Berlin Department of Culture organize the event. The Jewish security came only in the past five years. Before that we had only security provided and paid for by the city (German policemen). Another informant provides some historical context that led to the organization of this event: The Jewish Cultural Heritage Week started in 1987 on the occasion of the seven hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Berlin. It was a great celebration undertaken with the participation of Jews in East and West Berlin. Jewish cultural heritage. The purpose of the week was for the revitalization of Jewish culture. It started in West Berlin and consists of concerts, dances, exhibitions, theater, jazz. It is organized around a theme every year: Jerusalem (in 1995), Tel Aviv Nonstop (in 2001), etcetera. The Jewish Week is a global event that includes participants from the United States, for example. But most participants are German, both Jewish and non-Jews. The discussions are held in German or English. Last year, we had an important event that had a large number of people from the United States and around the world. There were street celebrations on one day. There were a lot of actors, musicians. A lot of people around the world came to attend the event. I asked two Gentiles who were aware of the Jewish Culture Week to provide me with their own interpretations of the event. A German woman who manages a toy store near the old synagogue in the Jewish quarter said: “The purpose of the Jewish week is to discuss issues,

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provide a forum, and to have some money to do cultural things. It is better to have it in a context that you can control, like a special week. It is good for public relations, to show that you are a community, you can learn about us, you can see us as we are. Both Jews and non-Jews attend this week.” A German journalist who lives in the area and is often seen in one of the galleries in Scheunenviertel adds his comments on the Jewish Culture Week: A lot of Polish immigrants still have attachment to Germany. So they invite them, and they teach during the week. A lot of things are revived, especially cultural institutions. What they do in these topics by nature is Jewish. Like the American Academy, which is in Berlin, they have fellows from all different walks of life. I will say 85 percent of them are Jews. Also because a lot of professors in America are Jews. But the tradition of the American Academy, Einstein Forum in Potsdam, or even the Moses Mendelsohn Center, they are all trying to do the same thing. This is the whole revival of the Jewish German intellectual life. People are trying to make a connection that was broken and to fix these links that have been weak. But now with unification, it is a Renaissance of sorts. Actually, it is this kind of Jewish life that becomes interesting in that what this annual Jewish week is trying to do is reestablish something. The most detailed explanation about the history of the Jewish Culture Day and Week in Scheunenviertel was given by the director of the Jewish Cultural Center located near the old synagogue in the Jewish quarter, the site most visited by tourists: Last year we had the Jewish Summerfest. The Jewish students arranged that and actually want to hold it every year. But probably they will be too lazy or not have support. So sometimes it does not take place, and normally they only let you know it is happening the week before. I think the last time it was held was last year. It was at Rykestrasse two or three times, and now it is here at Hamburgergrosse. The idea of the heritage week was to let the Jewish people have the feeling that something is happening all over Europe. These Jewish activities have taken place to show Jewish life to non-Jews also. There is a Jewish Week in November in Berlin that is a Jewish Cultural Festival. They also have the Jewish Film Week,

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which started this past Saturday [in June] and will last for one week. At the Jewish Street Fair, everybody who is Jewish is there. It is always on a Sunday, and for years they brought it together with Jerusalem Day, but it was not very wise politically. The Arabs and Palestinians protested and the left-wing Jews protested. Now they do each on a different date. There is a problem with security at these events. Before, there was a Jewish Culture festival in East Berlin, which started in the early 1980s. It was a Yiddish festival, supported by the state with not too much money. West Berlin had nothing at that point, and then they decided they also had to do something and invented their own Jewish Festival Week. After 1990, the East Berlin thing was closed because the West Berliners thought they had something better. That was the whole thing. Now it is held in the second week of November, following the commemoration of Krystallnacht. They used to fly in people to attend. One year they showcased New York, another year, Moscow, another, Israel. The theme usually is one country or city. They bring in people to give talks and lectures, show films, have dancing, and so on. Of course, over time, the money has been cut because it is all funded by the state. It is more like an arts festival. It is not really for bringing the people together. It is more aesthetic. Sometimes it features very weird culture and arts, more for the young people. It is not really what you would expect. The way I would do it would be to tell all of New York to come here in November. Twice a year the city of Berlin invites former Berliners here. Of course, the idea is to bring them together with Jewish life. It is not really done. It’s very superficial. They drive them around, show them the synagogue, go there for dinner. But it is not really a lively thing. This program is done by the City of Berlin, and someone from the Jewish community gives a speech. This year, I was also invited. Officially the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland is part of the European thing, but I cannot see this really broken down or transmitted to the Jewish community. I think this is due to the fact that the Jewish community is mostly Russian-speaking now and that the Germans (Polish or whatever they are) want power. The Russian crowd is not really interested in meeting other people and making them feel good because they are on social welfare, they have no jobs and have a lot of problems.

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Global Neighborhoods There are other organizations for younger Jewish people, probably around forty years old or something. They are doing weekend trips. Actually, people say it is a singles meet singles event, but obviously nobody gets married. People go and just take a tour to Istanbul, to here or there. But the problem is that it is very expensive, with first-class hotels. So it is more for people from Switzerland, or Austria who are in business, have money, and want to have a nice Jewish weekend.

Tourism and Neighborhood Security The presence of the foreign tourists and the extra crowd of worshippers from outside the local congregations have necessitated the organization of some form of protection for the community because of possible infiltration by criminals. We have taken note of this issue in chapter 3. The functioning of such an internal security system is both for the protection of the tourists and of the neighborhood, its buildings, and its people. Some community members ventured to share with me how they think the security services of the neighborhood operate. In a conversation with a forty-eight-year-old Jewish woman from Paris, she explained to me that: The neighborhood security police patrols the Rue des Rosiers and its surroundings. They have regrouped. They make up for the shortcomings of the police patrols. That’s the particular reason why there are undercover beggars [decoy policemen] in the street. There is one who knows everybody. And I think that he pays for services. I saw that he went to buy green beans at Picard under that casseroute sign [kashrut—the Jewish dietary laws]. The Rue des Rosiers and the neighborhood are under permanent surveillance by the Jewish shopkeepers. No more police patrols. Commenting on Jewish security in the neighborhood, a well-known shopkeeper provided more precision on the identity of this security corps and what they are entitled to do. They operate during adverse situations that are caused by international tensions and perform prevention. It’s rather at the level of the consistoire [the religious council established by Napoleon that is in charge of Jewish religious affairs], when

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there are visits from Israeli heads of state or ministers or Israeli military personnel who come. They are also in charge of their security. And on Saturdays and holidays, we have a community consistorial security that is put in place and completes the neighborhood’s police infrastructure. That is, an infrastructure of general information. It’s the consistoire that takes care of it. They are people who are conscious of the terrorist and international problems, who give some of their time to help. It is a nonremunerated activity that is done for free by people who want to save others from or prevent an attack. They have had previous training necessary for the surveillance of the neighborhood. They cannot carry weapons. They have a community armband [brassard]. They carry identification and must identify themselves. They work side by side with the French police. It’s not a parallel police force, but a complementary one. That’s very important. It’s us [the residents], when we notice that there is no police and security in the sector, who ask and inform the different police services so that they can be vigilant and bring security here. The municipal police, the security guards hired by individual merchants, and the consistorial security apparatus that operate on Saturdays and Jewish high holy days are the main visible actors that provide security to the neighborhood. The head of a Jewish association headquartered on the Rue des Rosiers explained: There is an internal police that has orders not to intervene, because we don’t want to put oil on the fire. The internal police is only necessary among us: in the Jewish associations, in the important centers, maybe in the CRIF [the Conseil Représentatif des Juifs de France] or other Jewish organizations. We are mainly here to calm things down and explain and discuss them. This is a sensitive issue. We need to be able to do this without showing off, without insulting each other, we need to try and understand the other. That’s what should be done. The consistorial police has to do with the religious community (practicing Jews or synagogues). It’s an internal security system. They do not prevent us from protesting when it is necessary to protest. The Sephardic owner of one of the bookstores in the quarter made a distinction between the consistorial security apparatus, which is

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an intrinsic part of the operation of the organization, and the security guards that the organization uses at times to protect its membership. He said: “There is a security service from the consistoire, a consitorial police that assures the security in the synagogues and in the community areas [community centers]. Because of what is happening now, the police are more vigilant. We see them pass by from time to time. We do not feel secure in the neighborhood.” Policing the neighborhood necessitates the collaboration of various security units and personnel and a division of labor to make the operation more efficient. A Jewish businessman, owner of a textile store, said: “Globalization is the issue that relinks the neighborhood to the mayor’s office. To prevent the infiltration of Muslim terrorists into the neighborhood, the French police, the consistorial security apparatus, Interpol, and Israeli intelligence collaborate and deter criminal undertakings here.” This textile store owner further shared with me his philosophical reflections on the operation of the security system in the neighborhood. I think that to still need security in the twenty-first century in order to be able to practice one’s religion and be able to direct oneself in the neighborhood is an open wound in the face of democracy. It’s an insult to democracy. Because if democracy cannot protect Jews—because when Jews are attacked, France is attacked in its entirety—if France cannot protect people without permanently needing a vigilante-pirate plan, we must deplore the end of a democratic world. As explained in chapter 3, police security is much tighter in Berlin than it is in London. The following statement made by a middle-aged Jewish woman in Golders Green gives a glimpse of the organization of security in London: “If you go to a Jewish school, there is permanent security, but most of it is done by parents on a rotating basis. Hanna and I have children in the Jewish School. We are supposed to do our share, but because we are both working, we pay someone else to do our security. They have some paid security, but they have a lot of parents who do it, too.”

Diasporic Globalization The fact that the Jewish quarter is a theme park that facilitates heritage tourism is a central mechanism that reproduces the globalization of

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the site. The project of transforming an ethnic neighborhood into a theme park to attract foreign tourists has been accomplished in two ways: through neglect or through modernization and renovation. With neglect, the peculiarity of the neighborhood remains intact, which in itself may lure tourists to visit because of its exoticness in comparison to other more modern neighborhoods. However, revamping the neighborhood and upgrading its facilities without destroying its ethnic flavor enhances and maximizes its tax-return capability. Whether the policy is to renovate or to ignore the neighborhood, it is done with the goal of attracting foreign visitors for the purpose of revenue maximization. The globalization process of the neighborhood induced by tourism is undertaken by various mechanisms that are worth recapitulating here to show how they work at the local level. Ethnic tourism affects the local business community because the tourists do not simply visit the site, but also use the services and the stores in it. Profit in the quarter is maximized as a result of the various transactions tourists engage in. As global business entities, the more buyers that the stores attract, the more profit for the ethnic business community as a whole. The tourists bring about diversity in the products that are made available in the neighborhood because they seek special items that may not be consumed by the local community. Business owners make products available in order to attract such international customers. Because of the dependence of store owners on the tourist clientele, these businesses have become international operations through the products they acquire and sell, and the clientele that buys them. Tourism also contributes to the globalization of the local because it induces the need to connect with overseas producers for the purposes of acquiring merchandise to resell in the quarter. It links the local store owner to an international producer and client. Tourism creates a distinct temporal beat to the quarter because it affects the economy most during the different periods when the most tourists visit, either during Jewish holidays or the summer. This beat depends more on the ethnic holidays of the group, rather than on the holidays of mainstream society. In the process, it shows the global deployment of the ethnic holiday. The transnational urban system of Jewish enclaves is operated through the circulation of bodies, information, institutions, and goods, and tourists are one group that makes the entire system operational. Through their visits, they contribute to the maintenance of transnational linkages and link a diasporic community or the homeland to other diasporic sites in the circuit.

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To show the collapse of the global in the local, it suffices to say that some of these tourists are former residents of the quarter or consider the quarter a homeland. Therefore, items purchased in the quarter could come from the place where one currently resides. One could have purchased the same item for a lesser price at home, but one only becomes aware of its existence as a tourist because of more free time to visit stores. Jewish diasporic tourism, unlike mainstream tourism is not a oneway process. Jewish diasporic tourists visit other diasporic quarters and welcome people from other nodes to come to their quarter. There is a bidirectional or multidirectional population movement. Finally, Jewish Culture Days and Weeks establish another hemispheric circuit that allows European Jews to travel to these places to attend the events, since each national community holds its activities at different times.18 In the long term, along with experiments such as the European Union, institutions such as Jewish Culture Week will help increase the knowledge that European Jewish communities have of each other.

Chapter 9


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he globalization of the Jewish quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin is sustained by the transnational relations they maintain with extraterritorial sites such as the ancestral homeland of Israel and other diasporic Jewish communities throughout the world. These relations are familial, transactional, religious, or communicational. Far from being an isolated site, the Jewish quarter is constantly traversed by global flows that cohere the interaction of its local activities. It is also important to distinguish the three levels at which these relations are undertaken: individual, institutional or organizational, and through a third party such as, for example, city hall.

Diasporic Neighborhoods and Globalization The sociological literature on ethnic neighborhoods has for the most part focused on these communities in the context of the bound state and not that of the unbound nation. The state is a territorial unit with fixed borders, while the nation, because of its diaspora, has tentacles that reach into many states. As we have noted before, seeing them as ethnic enclaves skews the discussion toward issues of assimilation, integration, and participation in mainstream society. Shifting the emphasis to viewing them instead as diasporic sites induces us to pay more attention to extraterritorial connections and border-crossing practices and to view these communities as nodes in transnational networks. A burgeoning literature that stresses aspects of the globalization process of these neighborhoods is slowly emerging in reference to circuits of capital formation and circulation, unveiling connections to the homeland as a source of capital for ethnic entrepreneurs or as the receptacle of immigrant remittances, to the community as a hotbed of political opposition to the homeland regime or as producing lobbyists engaged 159

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in cosmopolitan political practices, as a locale in which immigrant hometown associations are involved in development projects in their native villages, as outposts of religious organizations headquartered in the homeland, or as engendering people and organizations that are involved in multifaceted binominal and bidirectional relations with the homeland. However, the heavy emphasis on homeland and hostland diasporic connections has overshadowed diaspora-to-diaspora relationships. This chapter reproblematizes the issue: The diasporic neighborhood’s relations not just with the homeland, but with other diasporic sites provide a fuller understanding of the globalization of the European Jewish diasporic neighborhood, whether in Paris, Berlin, or London. This chapter therefore relocates the Jewish diasporic neighborhood inside this wider frame of relationships, including both the homeland and other diasporic sites. It argues that the identity of the ethnic neighborhood and its mode of operation cannot be understood outside these points of reference. It also shows how these transnational relations reverberate and reshape everyday practices in the neighborhood. And it explains how the mobility of individuals and goods further strengthens the ties of these communities to each other and integrates each as a distinct node in the transnational networks that constitute the Jewish transnation.

City Hall, Israel, and Diasporic Sites Transnational relations of the quarter with Israel also encompass the relations that city hall maintains with Israel for the purpose of enhancing life in the neighborhood. These are labeled “indirect relations” of the quarter with Israel, undertaken by a third party. They are accomplished within the context of bilateral relations and are channels used by Israel to ensure the protection and security of the neighborhood, by the community to ensure that city hall develops constructive relations with Israel, and by city hall to improve relations with the Jewish quarter. In a sense, city hall includes the quarter in its international relations and in the process contributes to the globalization of the quarter. In other words, this third-party participation is one of the political means by which the community projects and stabilizes its global status. Although the mayor of Paris was able to play a key international role by, for example, visiting Israel and Palestine, the town hall or mairie of the Fourth Arrondissement is not a full-fledged city hall, and its officials do not have international roles to play. Its contact with Israel


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on behalf of the quarter is done through the offices of the mayor of Paris. An official of the mairie explained their interaction with Jewish institutions outside the quarter on behalf of the neighborhood: As an arrondissement town, we do not have direct contact with Israel. We do not have the ability to regularly travel to Israel. We are in very close contact with all of the Jewish institutions located in Paris: the embassy of Israel, the CRIF, the consistoire. The mayor is always invited to the annual dinner of the CRIF. The consistoire has almost daily contact with many associations, including ones on the Rue de Rosiers that include people from the Association of the Naming of the Righteous [Association pour la Nomination des Justes]. We do it all while taking into account the limits of our constitutional power. The mairie of the Fourth Arrondissement sees establishing a link between the Paris Jewish quarter and other Jewish quarters in Europe as one of its roles. Toward this goal, the first project they plan to undertake is increasing the relations of the neighborhood in Paris with the Jewish quarter in Vienna. I was told by a local government employee: We are planning to have the small arrondissement of Vienna, which has a strong Jewish population (and is a historically Jewish neighborhood) as a sister arrondissement. When we go to visit Vienna in several weeks, we will bring people from the Jewish community with us in order to strengthen their bonds with other European cities and other Jewish histories, as well. The city of Paris currently has many other partnerships with sister cities.

The Jewish Quarter and Israel: Transnational Relations In many ways, the Jewish quarter, like any other immigrant community, serves as an extension of the homeland, and the patterns of communication that sustain this link transform both the homeland and the quarter into poles on a continuum. Religion is of course one of the central links connecting the Jewish quarter of Paris with Israel as part of a transnational network. However, this link is not uniformly strong throughout the quarter. An older informant makes a distinction in this regard between the practitioners of the faith and nonreligious Jews. He says that, “with the state of Israel, there are several levels. There is

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the level of the religious Jew who is intensely pro-Israeli. On the other hand, French Jews of my generation are more, I would say, moderate [timorés], there is no longer any total exaltation.” The Jewish quarter has also developed several other types of relationships with Israel, rooted in family linkages, business activities, security concerns, and service to the homeland.1 These relations are so strong and ongoing that while the geographical borders between the quarter and the homeland can easily be deciphered, social borders, crisscrossed by transnational practices, are more blurred and difficult to distinguish. Family relations have been established since the birth of the state of Israel, and they have been continuing ever since. These routine relations reach a high point whenever political turmoil erupts in Israel. A man who owned and managed a bookstore in the Jewish quarter in Paris said: When the state of Israel was founded, it’s crazy how people went to settle in Israel. Even my son left to go live in a kibbutz. Even though there are a lot fewer Jews in this neighborhood than before, there is still a bond, a cement. When certain things happen, certain events, and the telephone is working, there are manifestations. When Rabin was killed, we all went out into the streets and protested. Family ties remain strong and persistent in good as well as bad times. A Jewish informant from Yemen who now lives in Stamford Hill said “the reason why Jews from this neighborhood travel to Israel is to visit their families. Some of them have part of their family there. Some go there for a change, like during Jewish holidays.” A female Jewish informant in Paris also stressed this family connection as the main aspect of that special relationship between the diaspora and Israel. You have to know that each one of us has family in Israel. Each one of us has family: a cousin, an uncle, a little niece there. There are large numbers of us going there. There is a very strong emigration of French Jews to Israel. What needs to be known is that the relations of Jews from France with Israel are very strong and sincere. It is not an unconditional relationship. We are trying to understand Israeli politics. On the other hand, we cannot pretend to understand the experience of an Israeli whose child has fallen victim to a Palestinian attack—we would not dare do that. So we have compassion and love for those


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people in a very sincere manner and we are, in any case, very close to them. Everyone else adheres more specifically to the politics of the moment. Migration to or from Israel persists today. This is done to reunite with family, to consolidate the gains of the state of Israel, or because of worries over personal security. A Jewish community organizer who has a son in Israel said that “French Jews were encouraged to emigrate to Israel because there is, they say, a lot of anti-Semitism in France. Since Israel needs hands and money, they made an offer, but it would seem that the French Jews who went to Israel were greatly disappointed. Despite this, there is permanent movement.” Travel agencies in and around the quarter are the businesses most thoroughly involved in creating linkages between the quarter and Israel. They earn large amounts of revenue making arrangements for Jews who want to travel there. These trips are undertaken mostly to visit family and religious sites in the homeland. Occasionally they are done for business to show support for the country. Travel agencies induce people to travel by offering attractive packages that can be affordable even to individuals of meager means. There is a good deal of movement from London to Israel and from Israel to Stamford Hill and Golders Green. Some Israelis relocate in these enclaves, while individuals from these communities travel to Israel to visit during religious holidays, such as Pesach (Passover). While the great majority of businesses stores in the Jewish quarter in Paris are mom-and-pop stores with the family living upstairs or in the neighborhood, a few are involved in headquarters-subsidiary relations similar to those of transnational corporations. A bookshop in the neighborhood has established such a subsidiary in Israel. Its manager gives us a sense of his import practices of goods from Israel: “We founded another bookshop in Israel. We have a branch in Israel. Most of our books are books edited in France, bought in France, and made in France. We have a few religious books that come from Israel, about 5 percent of the stock. However, all of the ceremonial objects that we sell, without exception, come from Israel.” Israeli investment in the neighborhood also forms business links between the quarter and the homeland. For example, the houses and other property that Israelis buy force them to maintain ongoing relationships in the quarter, for managerial purposes. A female Jewish lawyer who is very active in the Jewish quarter noted: “There are Israelis who are buying [real estate] in the neighborhood. We have things that are particular to this area, like a gay quarter and a Jewish quarter, side by

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side. It gives somewhat of a special air. Some Jews do not want to live in a Jewish sector, so it stays the custom to invest here, even if we don’t live here.” Some people have real estate agencies located in both the quarter and Israel and are able to help people in Israel buy houses in the quarter and people in the quarter buy houses in Israel. The relationship between the Jewish neighborhood and Israel also can be seen in the area of security and police protection. The Israeli intelligence service shares whatever information it gathers on potential terrorist attacks within the neighborhood with the local authorities. They do this so that the diaspora can protect itself by preventing such occurrences. A Jewish female community organizer said that “there is a special relationship between the Israeli and French police. The Israeli police warns the French police and the Jewish community every time terrorist activities are planned. They have an especially cooperative relationship with France.” Another Jewish informant goes even further to elucidate the existence of intelligence agents in the neighborhood: “As far as cooperation with the police, we know that there are a great number of secret agents from the Mossad and the Shin Bet here.” This observation seems to corroborate a comment made by Michael Dahan and Gabriel Sheffer: For example, it is known that Israeli secret services—especially the Mossad—maintain constant connections with the security officers of major Jewish organizations all over the world. Through these networks, warnings about possible terrorist activities and other potential dangers against both the homeland and the diaspora are exchanged on a bilateral basis. The same, or similar, networks are used for the transfer of educational and other cultural resources in which these homeland governments are interested.2 Terrorist organizations may use the neighborhood as a site for retaliation against Israel, and when Israel informs the community of potential violence, as we have seen, the community responds with its own efforts at policing. A female Jewish informant who lives in the Jewish quarter in Paris said that, “in terms of security, we are organizing ourselves. We have our own people ready to search the synagogues, to provide security in the tough moments. For example, on the day of Yom Kippur, we had a good mobilization of the young (and the less young) to check up on and control the neighborhood.” Political events in Israel affect the well-being of the Jewish community because of the negative opinion held by the average French


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citizen regarding Israel and the French press’s pro-Palestinian bias in covering the conflict in the Middle East. In everyday interactions, Gentile French neighbors make their negative views on Israel known. As a female Jewish informant said, Every time there is turmoil in Israel, it is reflected in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, it is reflected in a negative manner. That is, we are forced to experience really strong anti-Semitic sentiment from our greater community. In fact, in our [nonJewish] neighbors’ speeches one sees that there is a rejection of the politics of Israel and by amalgam—since the press publishes these things—people turn against Jews. Anti-Semitism is becoming increasingly evident.3 Another Jewish woman who is the founder and manager of a nonprofit Jewish institution in the Jewish quarter in Paris provided an example of this harassment caused by the Middle Eastern conflict: I have been speaking [temoigné] for several years already in elementary schools, high schools, and colleges about the Holocaust. Since the last Intifada, it has been hard for me to go into certain suburbs and speak in certain high schools. As a Jew, I am really badly received. I am afraid right now to go to certain places, whereas before, I would go anywhere without any problem. I hope that it will work out with time. I wish it would because the situation is deplorable—it doesn’t represent the end of the problems. What we would like is for it to get settled rapidly. Finally, an acute awareness of the needs of the embattled Israeli state maintains significant links between the quarter and the homeland. The practice of tzedakah (charity) is a constant reminder of the Jewish neighborhood’s link to Israel. One might say that the relationship is primarily sustained through the practice of sending money to various people and institutions in Israel. One may see this either as an informal tax contribution that the homeland nation collects from its diaspora or as an unregulated tithe that the geographical center of the faith receives from its dispersed congregation. One Jewish store owner said that “they have regular money collections to send funds to Israel. You cannot imagine how many calls for help regularly circulate from Israel, regular mail from charities, schools, synagogues. It never stops.” A female Sephardic informant, originally from Morocco, who also happens to be a lawyer and a community organizer, said:

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Global Neighborhoods When we make donations to a synagogue, we do it to help the poor. Unfortunately, we also have a very poor population that must be helped and supported here. They are, unfortunately, becoming more and more numerous, France is in crisis. When we make donations to the synagogues, butcher shops, and all of the places where there is tzedakah to do, we know that it goes toward schools, or for poor people. When we want to give to Israel, there is only one way, and it’s to give to the UJF [the United Jewish Federation]. The UJF is an organization that collects donations for Israel. It’s the only way for us to get this money to Israel, unless, of course, we send this money directly to our families in Israel. French tourists are the largest group to have traveled to Israel this year [2003]. We are proud of these people because we are very close to them. Their history is ours and our history, theirs. We become concerned about each other through each [group’s] history.

Tzedakah is collected not only to help Israel, but also to aid other Jewish communities throughout the world, sometimes because of a catastrophic disaster, other times to help immigrants from North Africa, Argentina, Ethiopia, or Russia settle in Israel. This practice of supporting Jewish communities in crisis has contributed to this neighborhood’s status as a node in a network of transnational relations. Another informant had the following to say about tzedakah: The financial help for the state of Israel happens at a minimal level. It’s not only the Jews who give, there are the Catholics, as well—collections for children, hospitals, to plant trees. Tens of thousands of trees were planted with money coming from Europe. I think that some part of the money comes from secular people and not from the religious. One may not be a observant, but still feel Jewish at the same time. That’s my case. To show the strength of the neighborhood’s need to help Israel, the Sephardic owner of a Jewish bookstore observed: “There is a strong sense of solidarity between the neighborhood and Israel. We had a tzedakah for people who had difficulties in France. We have made the political decision to have a tzedakah for the people from here. However, as soon as we do a tzedakah for Israel, the basket collection is full in two days.” The relations with Israel are magnified in the neighborhood whenever there is an attack against Israel. As one informant puts it,


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“every time something happens in Israel, the atmosphere in the street becomes heavier. And when we chat with people living in the community, we know that they go to Israel as often as possible. Otherwise they maintain correspondence through mail, phone, newspapers, etcetera. . . . They all have a parent or close friend in Israel. Their apprehension is noticeable when you chat with them.” The relationship is reawakened at a symbolic level when incidents occur that threaten Israel or the community. It is then that the consciousness of being Jewish and one’s attachment to Israel is reaffirmed. This awareness manifests itself in different ways, as seen in what happened during the Six Days’ War. A Jewish woman who was born in the Jewish quarter and had lately returned to live there said: I think it must have flustered a good number of people. I am sure that for some people it reawakened their Jewish fiber, but not so far as to go reconvert oneself at the synagogue. It surprised a good number of people, especially Gentile philoSemites. And it was also a time when there was a revival of Jewish consciousness within the third generation. The young people who had become de-Judaized after the war [World War II] did not want to hear about Judaism. Many of them had hidden from their children that they were Jewish. These children eventually researched their ethnic origin, and that created today’s generation. The Intifada crisis is another moment in the history of the neighborhood when the attachment to Israel was once again felt. An older Jewish man who is the head of a Jewish organization on the Rue des Rosiers said: Maybe the Jewish community is becoming radicalized because of the events in the Middle East—the Jewish fibers are reawakening. I don’t know how to situate myself with regard to Israel. There are many people who were brought up in the kibbutz climate. People have finally realized that in Israel there is nothing that is socialist or Marxist. It’s a little bit like utopian socialism (everybody’s equal). Those people are so disappointed in this that they finally started believing in the messianic capacity of Israel. I am pro-Israel, but anti-Zionist. The diaspora ferociously supports any Israeli prime minister because they have internalized this idea of a permanent danger within the Jewish community.

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One informant sums up the various levels of the relationship with Israel and provides an analytical way of understanding the whole issue by including the meanings attached to them. This male informant, operator of an old-time clothing store, says: There are several aspects of the relationship between the neighborhood and Israel. There is the religious aspect, when we make collections that go to prayer sites in Israel, help the preservation of synagogues, and of yeshivas [schools for Talmudic learning]. There is the social aspect of helping Israel, with regard to the poor. This absorbs costs for the part of the diaspora that wants to settle in Israel and does not have the means, such as the Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, and the Jews of Argentina during the crisis there. There is money that is collected for these needs. Aside from this, there are collections and donation requests for ambulances and collections for various things at the Jewish community level. There is fusion between the French and Jewish community. The heart of the French Jewish community beats for Israel—to the rhythm of beautiful things as well as to the rhythm of attacks. For example, yesterday’s terrorist attack in Israel shocked the community in its entirety. Of course, in any community there is never 100 percent agreement. There are really about 70 percent who think of Israel as part of their flesh and in their soul. We all have family in Israel, parents who live in Israel. It’s our common heritage. When American Jews come as tourists to the Rue des Rosiers to eat a bagel, a picklefleish, they try to find the smell of their grandmother’s or their mother’s food. On the other hand, there are about 30 percent of Jews who do not identify at all with Israel. These are Jews who live in France, but are not interested in the issue. All in all, the relations of the diaspora to Israel are not homogeneous—some accept the centrality of Israel within Jewish life; others do not. Also, these relations have a temporal dimension because they tend to be intense during a period of crisis in Israel and fade away in less tumultuous times. The relations are also more intense during certain celebrations, such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when people are more likely to call back and forth to wish each other a happy New Year. Likewise, some Jewish organizations maintain constant relations with Israel because their subsidiaries or associates live there, while others do


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so only periodically. These relations may be initiated in Israel (as with security warnings) or in the diaspora (e.g., by family needs). The relations can be maintained by courier, telephone, fax, and the Internet or through personal visits. Some are central and others are incidental. The global relations between Israel and its diaspora have an intrinsic value for the survival of the country, because its existence depends partly on the moral, political, and economic support of the diaspora.4

Interdiasporic Relations Not only does the Jewish quarter maintain relations with Israel, it is also engaged in constant communication with other diasporic sites. Interdiasporic relations existed and were functionally significant even before the independence of the state of Israel. Relations with Israel have not diminished these ties, but have somewhat consolidated them. Each Jewish quarter in the global circuit of Jewish enclaves serves as a potential place of residence for Jewish immigrants, as a site where one might find a spouse, as a tourist site for Jewish travelers, as a marketplace for one’s products, as a site to attend a rabbinical school, and as a place to be assigned to serve as the rabbi of a congregation. The fluidity of these transnational relations is a central feature of the way these quarters function as nodes of a global system of urban enclaves that feed the existence of one another. The North London Shomer Shabbos Telephone and Business Directory, a Jewish Yellow Pages for London, provides clues as to the geography of globalization in the Jewish enclaves of Stamford Hill and Golders Green. For example, it spells out these relations in two sections: one on minibus travel services and the other on information provided about six other Jewish communities. According to the Jewish Yellow Pages, one travel company offers daily services from London to Antwerp and back to London. Another company, Guttman’s London Antwerp Service, provides door-to-door service, as it puts it, “Mornings from London—Afternoons from Antwerp.” While this company either uses the Euro Tunnel or ferry to travel to and from Belgium, a third company, Zilber Travel, operates its services only via the Euro Tunnel. Belgium remains a prime diasporic connection with Stamford Hill and Golders Green, as shown in the daily minibus traffic between these British and Belgian Jewish communities. This Jewish Yellow Pages singles out the following diasporic communities and provides information on them for the benefit of Jewish travelers in London: Manchester, Gateshead, Antwerp, Switzerland,

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Eretz Yisrael, and the United States. According to a knowledgeable Jewish informant from Golders Green who is the manager of a Jewish institution there, these connections are based on prevalent linkages between Orthodox Jewish communities. For example, useful information is given for Manchester on the Beis Soroh Schenierer Seminary, the Manchester Yeshiva, and Yeshiva Sharei Torah; for Gateshead on the Beis Chaye Rochel Seminary Office, the Gateshead Jewish Boarding School, and the Yeshiva Mishkan Hatorah Office. It gives information for Antwerp on the Machzikei Hadass, Shomrei Hadass, and Yeshivas Eitz Chaim WILRIJK. For Switzerland, it includes information on the Etania Davos Platz, Luzerne Beth Yakov Seminary Office, and Yeshivas Luzerne Office. It includes various institutions in Israel (the information covers two pages and is written in Hebrew) and provides information for the United States on the Oppenheimers Regis Hotel, Bikur Cholim of Seagate Kimpeturin Heim, and Beth Din of the Central Rabbinical Congress. This global landscape in which Orthodox communities—mostly the European component—interact daily is different from the global geography of interaction with other members of the community. For example, the small Moroccan Jewish community interacts with Morocco, Israel, and France because these are places where the members of the immigrant communities live or have migrated. But the transnational Orthodox Jewish interaction that maintains the global status of these quarters is dominant, not only because of a religious connection, but also because of commercial relations, since some of the kosher foods sold in the stores in Stamford Hill and Golders Green come from these places. A female informant from Golders Green explains how the Orthodox community is the driving force in the these transnational relations. As she puts it, “there is quite a large Orthodox community in Manchester, and my cousin is part of it. Antwerp has always been Orthodox, and there you have the diamond trade, so a lot of Orthodox Jews are involved in diamond cutting and clearing. New York has a big Jewish community. Kosher chocolate comes from Switzerland.” A female high school teacher from Stamford Hill explains why the Jewish neighborhood is closer to some communities than others. She believes: We have the strongest links with Israel, America, Belgium, and Switzerland, I think, because those communities are mainly Hasidic, and this is a mainly Hasidic community, too. I think that in places such as France and Canada, we have a language barrier. The Antwerpians can speak English and Yiddish, which people in this community use, too. However, the French are


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the real foreigners. (At least for here, anyway.) We have very little contact. We have cousins in Paris. As a community, we have very little contact with them because of the language and cultural barriers. They tend to be Sephardic, and the community here is mainly Ashkenazi.

The Global Circuit of Jewish Enclaves This chapter has attempted to unveil the architecture of transnational relations between the European Jewish quarter, the homeland, and extraterritorial diasporic sites. The quarter is not an isolated neighborhood, but part of a circuit of nodes that maintains its strength through its relations with other sites. It is the mobility of people, information, institutions, and goods that is at the heart of the dynamic of social integration into the urban environment. Because these enclaves are interconnected, they can justly be called global social formations because globalization is the mechanism that explains their modus operandi. They are global entities and are seen as such by the local governments that constitute them for the purpose of transacting with their homelands, by the homeland that repositions and lodges them in the global arena so they can reconfigure their relations with the host states, and by their own work to prevent their communities from being discriminated against, assimilated, or incarcerated by the mainstream community, which would lead to a loss of their cultural identity. These various dimensions shape the architecture of these global entities vis-à-vis the homeland, the hostland, and other sites of interaction. In addition to each community’s transnational relations, which help define its identity, one must recognize that each community is a collection of flows inside of which people and institutions develop their particular types of relations with extraterritorial entities. This is why each node has its own particularities, which distinguish one site from the other sites in the circuit. Since these enclaves are diasporic, they tend to be considered reactive concerning events in other sites. A negative event in one necessarily solicits the reaction of others, as previously happened in times of religious persecution or war. In this sense, because they welcome those who are persecuted or in search of asylum, one may refer to these Jewish neighborhoods as global communities of refuge. The tension that may exist between the enclave and the mainstream community cannot be explained simply by focusing on each

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as an exclusively local entity. Their local character is molded by the transnational relations that each maintains on a global scale, causing the need to analyze the local tension through a global lens. Since these local enclaves are producers of local knowledge, they develop their own understanding of the position and contribution of each node to the global network. In this instance, the neighborhoods can be seen as repositories of knowledge or as archives whose agents play a key role in the transmission of the group’s culture. Books, newspapers, and magazines published by diasporic Jews in one enclave are read by Jews in other enclaves. The circulation of knowledge becomes a main mode to transmit culture and information within the global Jewish transnation. In some cases, nodes have established institutions that function in more than one enclave. One can think here of the Leo Baeck Institute in Berlin, which has subsidiary offices in Jerusalem, London, and New York. These ethnic communities have been engaged in global governance even before the concept enjoyed widespread acceptance in the West. While these communities are engaged in various forms of cooperation through the collection of tzedakah to help communities in distress or by welcoming refugees, they are also competing with each other. For example, the Jewish communities in Berlin, in Germany, and Vilna (now Vilnius), in Lithuania, showcased themselves during the belle époque as the most important centers of Jewish enlightenment because of the strength of their intellectual communities and their productive academic output.

Global Integration The inherent globalization of Jewish quarters in the European Union results from their internal organization and intrasite relations. The relations between quarters and with Israel are not foreign relations, like those between two independent states, but are fundamentally intranational relationships. As such, they are relations within the “national” group dispersed in different settings. The homeland state remains territorially bound, but the nation has exploded transnationally, with individuals setting up residence in various diasporic sites. These extraterritorial relations are part and parcel of the everyday life of the community, and the neighborhood cannot divorce itself from them. As we have seen, religious life depends on these relationships because kosher foods and religious items are purchased from


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other sites; the success of entrepreneurial activities depends on them because goods are purchased abroad and tourists patronize local stores and restaurants; family life depends on them as well, because they link members across boundaries and provide access to other sites or places where the memories of members of the community may be archived; and even security depends on them because they offer warnings, resources, and refuge in the face of hostility and persecution. This intranational relationship has also its own rule, making any site in the network responsible for the well-being of the other sites. This is manifested in the financial aid sent during difficult times to show their solidarity; the interference of members of one neighborhood in the affairs of the other; the intelligence they share to protect the neighborhoods in the network; the intermittent circulation of people and objects from one site to the others; the newspapers published by one and read by the others; the institutions established in one that may be staffed by people from the other sites; and the schools (yeshivas) that are frequented by students from other sites. These intranational relations provide coherence to the network, sustain the internal organization of each site, and are mechanisms that enhance the prospect of their social reproduction. This transborder field that comprises the various sites constitutes the infrastructure of transglobal diasporic urbanism.


Chapter 10


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nformation technology (IT) has added another layer to the transnational relations between the European Jewish neighborhood, Israel, and other diasporic Jewish sites.1 In some cases, IT is the means through which transnational relations are maintained and sustained, while, in others, it is the means through which new relations are forged. In the process, what we can call the e-globalization of the neighborhood becomes a routine activity because of the communication paths established. By e-globalization, I mean the virtual connection, expansion, and interaction of the neighborhood, linking it to a multitude of overseas sites through the medium of information technology. The addition of the virtual sphere to local neighborhood social relations therefore needs to be examined so that aspects of the localization of globality and the globalization of locality can be understood in their just measure as a façade of transglobal diasporic urbanism. Here transglobal diasporic urbanism is defined as a border-crossing network of global neighborhoods that interact daily with the homeland and other diasporic sites, that constitute an operating circuit for the circulation of people, goods, images, and ideas from one place to another, and that influence and integrate transnationally the social activities of each participating locale. In December 2003, and from mid-May to mid-July 2004, I interviewed approximately fifty people in the Jewish neighborhoods of the European Union—Le Marais in Paris, Scheunenviertel in Berlin, and Stamford Hill and Golders Green in London—to elicit their comments about and interpretations of the globalization of these local sites and more precisely their extraterritorial relations with Israel and other diasporic Jewish sites.2 This portion of the research focused more keenly on how both the Internet and the cell phone contribute, in their own unique ways, to the routinization, expansion, and transnationalization of these global neighborhoods. 175

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Although the focus here is the Internet and, to a lesser extent, the cell phone, it must be said at the outset that the telephone, both traditional and cellular, and the fax are still the two most popular modes of international communication used by members of these Jewish neighborhoods. This is so in part because more people own these communication tools. The fax machine, in particular, is used by those who either do not have a computer at home or whose correspondents do not. I have been told time and time again by residents of these neighborhoods that in sharing a document with an overseas correspondent, it is much easier to fax it. The ubiquitous public phone system and prepaid phone cards facilitate these more traditional forms of electronic communication. Some cell-phone plans in Paris also allow users free minutes after midnight, creating a temptation for the nightly use of cell phones to make long-distance calls. In addition, some Orthodox households prefer not to have a computer at home in order not to be exposed to things they do not want members of the family, especially children, to see or read. Nevertheless, with the slow rewiring of the neighborhoods to facilitate Internet use, individual households and residents are embarking on a new form of globalization that allows them to participate in virtual community forums and discussions, find friends and family members in other locations, remain abreast of events in other Jewish neighborhoods, read Jewish newspapers online, engage in online long-distance purchasing, and expand their network of international contacts.

The Tools of Globalization The functioning of the globalization process presupposes the existence of the tools that facilitate its deployment. These mechanical objects form the material infrastructure needed to sustain the routinization of global communication and interaction. It is as important to understand the content and parameters of this physical infrastructure as it is to focus on the paths of social interconnectivity of local agents on a global scale. Although infrastructure does not determine the forms of global interaction, some aspects of it may be constrained if the infrastructure is nonexistent. In Jewish neighborhoods in Paris, Berlin, and London, the wiring of homes with the advent of the telephone was the first step in the process of the globalization of households, but other infrastructural changes have advanced this process. The telephone allowed one-on-one oral communication with overseas friends, while, more recently, the


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fax machine has facilitated the global flow of written communication. Although the ubiquity of television sets has permitted the transmission of images and information from abroad, the Internet now allows this global process of communication to be interactive. In a sense, with increased access to computers and the Internet, the household has become fully global as its members participate in diverse flows of global communication networks. These communication tools facilitate different forms of global interaction, are used by actors at different times for different reasons, serve as the vehicles through which various global conversations are channeled, and have contributed to making the diasporic Jewish household in the European Union a local ecosystem inhabited by global flows. The location of these tools also indicates the places in the house where global interactions take place. With a land-based telephone line, sites remain the same over time, with little variation. With a portable or cellular phone, interaction can be ubiquitous because it may occur at many different sites, inside or outside the home. The digitization of the home is reflective of the digitization of the whole neighborhood. Here we expand the concept of the digital home to signify not only the notion of a “smart” or “intelligent” home as referred to in the IT literature, but, more precisely, the virtual activities that go on in the house.3 It is this second meaning, not the first, that applies to the vast majority of Jewish households in Le Marais in Paris and Stamford Hill and Golders Green in London. These digital homes, because of the virtual practices of residents, are concrete blocks in the architecture of the digital neighborhood. These tools of globalization help to transform diasporic communities into digital neighborhoods.

Digital Neighborhoods The Jewish neighborhood has a virtual existence in addition to its offline life. I use the word “digital” to express the embeddedness and integration of the two spheres of action, online and offline. The virtual neighborhood is the cyberspatial façade of the physical neighborhood. They do not have two separate existences, but rather are coproduced as poles of a continuum. The study of digital diasporas, or the diasporic use of cyberspace to engage in social interaction, has so far engendered a small body of literature.4 Most of it deals with the study of ethnic Web sites, online discursive practices, identity issues, and cyberspatial interaction;5 focuses on the construction of race and gender or so-called cyberfeminist

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e-spaces;6 examines the digital divide presumably caused by lack of access to the Internet;7 or discusses the formation of virtual communities.8 The Internet has been found to facilitate ongoing ties with the homeland,9 provide an outlet for the ethnic press,10 and encourage ongoing communications between dispersed members of the diaspora.11 While a few of these studies concentrate only on single diaspora groups (Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Iranians, Greeks, or Haitians), they do not focus on any specific ethnic neighborhoods.12 They analyze how Net citizens behave online and the texts they produce, but not how ethnic neighborhoods are being transformed as a result of the use of information technology. The novelty of this chapter lies in its different orientation. On the one hand, it argues that online interaction is a factor in the transformation of the neighborhood and has become an intrinsic characteristic of its everyday life. On the other hand, it explains how online interaction has led to the routinization of the globalization of the neighborhood. In this light, a digital neighborhood is defined as a localized community that uses its online activities as a means through which to rejuvenate itself and expand its spheres of action extraterritorially.

Internet and Cell-Phone Users in Paris’s Historic Jewish Quarter In speaking about neighborhood e-globalization via the Internet and cell phone, it is important to have a sense of the size of the population of those who take advantage of these modes of communication, that is, those who expand their offline social interaction virtually. I asked a Sephardic woman, the head of an NGO (nongovernmental organization) in the area and the city hall staff person in charge of public relations with the neighborhood, to provide me with their assessment of Internet use in the historic Jewish quarter in Paris. It must be said at the outset that the number of people who possess a computer at home is smaller than the number of people who use them, since one can also access these tools in public places such as a public library or the Internet café on Rue des Ecouffes inside the Jewish quarter. According to the female Jewish activist who lives in the neighborhood, “The Internet is not very active here. Most people in the neighborhood do not have a computer. A minority, about 10 percent, have computers at home. It’s a relatively poor population. Outside of this neighborhood, starting from the Place des Vosges, 90 percent have computers.” The city hall employee provided the following interpretation on the basis


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of his virtual interaction with the neighborhood: “By and large, virtual relations between city hall and the Jewish residents of the Fourth Arrondissement are not very developed. There are some petitions sent to us via the Internet. We have some Internet sites that city hall makes available to the citizenry. They send me e-mails about Rue des Rosiers. The Internet hasn’t yet entered their daily habits. When they have things to say, they send us letters.” A French Jewish couple who hold memberships in more than one Jewish organization and live on the Rue des Rosiers explained that their use of the Internet is confined to the headquarters of the nonprofit associations where they volunteer their time. They do not have a computer at home, only a telephone and a fax machine. As they put it, “In the associations and committees, the Internet is used. Us here, we do not have computers and are not connected to the Internet. In all the big Jewish organizations, there is an Internet-based information system. It is done in two languages: French and English.” The most active users of the Internet in the neighborhood are young people. They learn how to use it in school and have friends who are computer literate with whom they interact in the virtual sphere. A female Jewish lawyer who is socially active in the community provides the following comment: “The young people use the Internet. I even have a [female] friend who found a [female] cousin in Argentina thanks to the Internet. We are finding family members that we thought were lost. We are finding them thanks to the Internet.” Another Jewish informant who operates a bookstore in the Jewish quarter bases his estimate of Internet use on the number of people who go to the Internet café a few doors down from his shop. This middle-aged Sephardic manager who has been observing social activities in this global neighborhood for many years made the following remark: “There are not many young people who live around here. Here it’s mostly people who have lived here for a very long time. You have an Internet café on the Rue des Ecouffes. Normally, there are a lot of people there on Sundays, which proves that there are not a lot of Internet-connected houses in the neighborhood. I have Internet at home and here in the shop, so I do not go to the Internet café.” Telephone calls also maintain transnational relations, which makes the telephone store a lucrative and flourishing business in the community. It sells special telephone cards for the purpose of longdistance calling. A female Jewish activist informant whom I met at a popular kosher shop said that “the bookstore at the end of the street sells telephone cards for Israel. It’s a good business. People can call their parents. Each one of us here has at least one uncle, cousin,

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grandfather, or son who lives in Israel.” An Ashkenazi gentleman who retired from his previous line of work and now volunteers his time in a nonprofit Jewish organization further explains: every time there is an event in Israel, people telephone there. There are a lot of people from the neighborhood who have their children or family in Israel, so there is a lot of communication. I have a nephew who lives in Israel. I even have a niece that lives there—the only survivor of my father’s family. I maintain contact with them, not through the Internet, but with the phone. The global interaction of the community via the Internet occurs for various reasons and takes various forms. It is additive when it is done to complement offline everyday practice, substitutive when it replaces some aspect of face-to-face relations, absorptive when it transforms the agent into a node of transnational communication, transactional when its purpose is to negotiate prices in the realm of virtuality, expansive when it enlarges the cycle of one’s social connections, and managerial when it controls output at a distance. A knowledgeable Jewish bookstore manager in the community summarized the various uses of the Internet by a handful of residents: Since the last Intifada, the Jewish community is generally very unhappy about the way information is handled in the traditional French media (newspapers, television, radio) about the Middle East conflict. There are many “alternative” information sites that have been created, such as Metula, and Proche-Orient.info. The community often looks for information on those Internet sites because it is not satisfied with the normal treatment of the issue in the traditional media, which it judges as unilateral, pro-Arab, and biased (to be frank with you). Over the past three years, the Israeli press has been gaining ground. For example, me, a bookshop owner, I don’t read the French press anymore to find out what is going on in the Middle East. I go directly onto the Internet and read Israeli newspapers. . . . They are all online in their daily editions, so I read them every day. There are a lot of Jewish virtual communities. There are two things that work for the community at the chat room level. First, information. Information circulates a lot on the Internet in the form of spam (e-mail groups). A lot of information, like an anti-Semitic action the press did not mention, is circulated


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by spam and then discussed on the forums. There are also forums that are more folkloric. There are dating forums, to get to know people and form couples. People from the neighborhood participate less in online forums because they are already in a Jewish community. They need the Internet less because they live within the community itself. Those who go and use the Internet are usually people who are isolated with respect to the Jewish neighborhood and are geographically or socially isolated from the community news. Here in the Jewish quarter [of Paris], when something happens in Israel, in three minutes it goes around the neighborhood.

Internet and Cell-Phone Users in London’s Stamford Hill and Golders Green To assess the use of the Internet in Stamford Hill, London, which houses a very visible Hasidic community, I interviewed several informants, among them a male Israel-born store employee, a male real estate agent, and a female Hasidic high school teacher. The Israeli immigrant spoke at length about the issue and provides much-needed detail on his pattern of use and his observations of Internet use in the neighborhood. I connect to the Internet on a weekly basis, at least once every week, sometimes twice or more. I chat and I go to chat Web sites where I am anonymous. Although some people recognize me there, I do not know how. I also check my mail, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and send instant messages straight away to my closest friends. I don’t have Jewish friends in America because I don’t know anyone personally there, but I know a lot of Jewish people in England and Israel. These are the people I am chatting with on MSN. I only chat with Israelis because there is no chat room for Jews in England that I know of. The chat is about a free forum, small talk, and communication. It leads to some very interesting and smart things. It is mostly about virtual games. When I go on the Internet, I only get to see Israeli, anonymous Jews. But they are all over the world; they are in America, Japan, Asia. The language used is mostly English or Hebrew. I use e-mail or MSN Messenger to chat with neighborhood friends instead of using the phone. When I use the Internet, I save a lot on phone calls. I also

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Global Neighborhoods chat with my mom in Israel. I videochat with my brother in Golders Green and with my family in France and Israel. The videochat is very effective. I go to Golders Green every day because I work there in the evening. The Internet is used by the young generation; the older people make less use of it. A lot of Jewish people use the Internet, especially those who appear to be strict. . . . They look at the news, which is up-to-date. When something happens, the first people to know are surprisingly those who are very strict with their religion, as identified by their appearance. They know straight away if something happens on the news because they are online often. They go to Hebrew Web sites and read the news there. I also look on the news Web sites in Hebrew. I look at that all the time. Whenever I use the Internet, I see what the news is, because this is my way to see what happens in Iraq or America. The Web site wala.co.il is the most popular. It is in Hebrew. English speakers can go to JerusalemPost.org. If you just type Hebrew news, they will give you a whole bunch of Web site links right away. Because of the Internet, Judaism is changing the closedcommunity, strict Hasidic, very intensive way of life. Because it is the alternative of denial, it is not likely to see someone dressed in the Hasidic fashion in an Internet café, since he always denies the whole thing. It is the paradox of the traditions of Judaism in the twenty-first century. They have their laptops and use it on their own because no one will know about it. A lot of people don’t even have problems with it in places that are very strict according to their religious rules. People want to have their own computers if they can afford it in order to have free access. But if someone does not have one, then his friend has a computer and will let him use it. People are so up-to-date these days. When I was working in the grocery store, people would come up and tell me the news before I even read it myself [as someone who is often on the Internet]. You are connected whether you want to be or not because you are born into it, whether your group is like this or like that. Even emotionally, politically speaking, some tell you that our rabbi would not support the politics of or even allow us to go to Jerusalem. But if something happens, if someone gets killed, even nonreligious people, like immigrants from Russia, are horrified. Usually the people who are the most horrified are the ones who have denied the connection


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with Israel or Judaism. They would be the most emotionally attached, at least. In the course of an interview with a Jewish real estate agent in Stamford Hill, he explained the various ways in which the people in the neighborhood use the cell phone and the Internet. His interpretation is based on his own experience as a religious, non-Hasidic Jew whose family came from Poland after World War II. People use the Internet to call family and friends because it is cheaper than the phone. For the visual and audio and pictures that they send, it is very handy. It makes live conferences possible, where people who live all over the world can see each other. For those in Israel with families in America, London, or Europe, you can see your daughter or your granddaughter online. My English-speaking Jewish friends are in New York, Israel, and a bit in France. For people who have the facilities, they mostly use the Internet at home; for others, it is either on friends’ computers or at the Internet café. For religious Jews (Hasidic), only guys can hang out in places where anything can happen, and the girls won’t hang out in Internet cafés. Businesspeople use the Internet for transactions, and many even have an extra phone line for it. Other people use it to see or read almost everything from friends showing goyim pictures of men being beheaded by Iraqis to messages of support for the soldiers. The Internet is used for political communication of all sorts. If you are Orthodox, in many countries like Antwerp and here, matchmaking is a common trend. It’s a great thing to bring two people together to have a marriage; it helps so you can go to heaven. Each Orthodox group has a religious counterpart in Israel, and they communicate with each other a lot. Antwerp is the biggest diamond trade center (import and export) in the world. The communities here cling to Belgium, New York, and Italy, more than France. A lot of people use the Internet to talk to their children wherever they happen to be in the world. Jews use it to talk to family overseas on a daily basis. They are constantly speaking to friends in other countries. A middle-aged female Hasidic high school teacher who is an immigrant from Morocco complements the information given above by

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adding the reasons why some use the Internet and others don’t, and also why some use it at home and not the library, or vice versa. Most Hasidic homes around here do not have the Internet. They belong to the arch-Orthodoxy. For them, the Internet is a no-no because it connects with all kinds of stuff. This is for the protection of the children, but also for the protection of the husband. The homes that have the Internet will normally have one partner that comes from somewhere else. For example, my husband is a New Yorker, so we have e-mail addresses so that we can e-mail his sister and his mother in New York and his brother in Argentina. My sister has a husband who comes from Israel, so they have the Internet so that they can access her husband’s family. A lot of people use the Internet in the library. They feel that it is a controlled and clean environment, so they are not going to mix with anyone they don’t want to, like someone they might meet in an Internet café. They go in there, check out what they want, and go home. The most popular Web site used by the community is www. onlysimchas.com, and that’s one that tells everybody everything. If you get engaged, get married, or have a baby, you can post it on the Web site and the whole Jewish world will see it. It’s Jewish, but not necessarily religious. There are very few Web sites in Yiddish, because there are very few people who speak the language. Hebrew and English are about the same in terms of popular usage in the community. It makes the world seem smaller, and it’s easy. For example, my friend got married in France. It was great. I could go and check her pictures there. As a people, we have a lot to say, and we want to say it now, and that’s why we have cell phones. If you go to Israel, most people have cell phones, too. The computer affects Jewish life very little actually, because the main place where most people come into contact with it is at work. What it has done is improve the language, because of the tools it has, like the thesaurus, dictionary, etcetera. People who previously wrote poorly are now producing work that is a little better. I think that the cell phone is very destructive. It means that my husband will be home for supper and something could take precedence over the meal we are supposed to have. It means that I could be looking after my child and my phone would ring and oops, I am on the phone, and my child is


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running into the street. It definitely has occupied us more. We have less time for our family. It is taking us away from that, and that’s a shame. As I said, the households that don’t have the Internet at all, they won’t care, because they don’t have families abroad. Most of us do have a lot of family abroad. I have my grandmother and grandfather. It is great that my kids get to see their grandmother on the Web cam. We get to see her; she gets to see the kids. The greatest volume of interaction here is with America and Israel. The strongest Jewish communities that have come to this country are American and Israeli. We have more in common with them than with the rest of Europe, except Switzerland and Belgium. There is a good number of Swiss here. After that, it’s very small. We are very business-minded; we have very good business acumen. As long as something comes up that will make things easier, we use it. You cannot go to the discussion groups because they are constantly attacked by Arabs. It is difficult to say anything today without being followed. You stay away from sites that have been attacked a lot, unless you want to challenge them. The global link via the Internet brings a new dimension to the organization and functioning of the Jewish family. Since all of the members of the family are not likely to live in the same city, the Web allows copresence—the online socialization of children with their grandparents and the sharing of family celebrations, for example—without the actual physical presence of certain members. In the past, photos of newborn children, bar/bat mitzvahs, and weddings could be shared only after they were developed. Now there is almost no waiting time. Photos can be seen within an hour of when they were taken. By making virtual copresence possible, the Web facilitates the transnational socialization of family members living in various overseas locations. In Golders Green, the computer is a familiar piece of equipment in many Jewish homes. In this upper-middle-class neighborhood in North West London, computers also can be accessed at various institutions, such as the public library, Jewish Care Center, and Jewish schools. The manager of the Jewish Care Center explains how the Jewish senior citizens who visit the site daily use the computer facilities: They come here and learn how to use the e-mail. They use the computers in the center to e-mail members of their families in

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Global Neighborhoods various parts of the world. We are not called “the wandering Jew” for nothing. You will find Jews all over the world, but what you will also find is that Jews move around constantly, especially the present generation. You will find a large percentage of Jews have family in other parts of the world. The Internet has been wonderful. E-mail has been fantastic because Jews can communicate with their families in Israel, America, all over the place, very easily. A lot of Jews in England have children who live in Israel or cousins who live in America. The Israel connection is the biggest one. The result is that, especially from America to Israel, there is a big time difference. Telephone calls are not practical and are also very expensive. The Internet is fantastic. And the Israeli Jews are at the top of the league in terms of technology. I know because my cousin is involved in Internet work. He has just moved to Canada for two years, from Israel. I have another British cousin who set up computer businesses in Israel and is now living in America. Jewish people like technology. We have elderly people saying, “My grandchildren are using this stuff, and I want to know what it is all about.” Some of them try and find it is too much for them. Those who are coping with it want to e-mail and do searches on the Web when I take them to the computer room at Jewish Care. This is what they are interested in. They are less interested in typing letters or writing their life stories. What they want to do is e-mail; they e-mail their grandchildren who have gone traveling and research their old schools or whatever on the Web.

Internet and Cell-Phone Users in Berlin’s Scheunenviertel Since the Jewish presence in Scheunenviertel is not quantitatively enormous, I decided to interview the director of two Jewish institutions in the community on the use of the Internet there. Here again, I found that most Jewish households do not have a computer at home, so people access it mostly at the offices where they work. The director of the Jewish Cultural Center, commenting on the use of the Internet in this historic neighborhood, observed that: Our cultural center is listed in the Web site Habalil.com, based in Munich. Through this site, a lot of people contact us. Almost


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every day, someone sends an e-mail to ask for something—where to do this, what is going on in Berlin, how to do this, where we can find kosher food? There are other Jewish sites as well, such as Milk and Honey. I think there is an age factor. A lot of Jews here are old and don’t use the Internet. The young people are more into the Internet. The Israeli embassy sends an e-mail with news on Israel at least twice a week. The Jewish Community Bulletin Board sends e-mails announcing events in the Jewish diaspora. We also get e-mails from Argentina, and they tell people about us, and more people write to us. We get e-mails from South Africa. A second acquaintance, whose office of the organization he heads is located in Scheunenviertel, reinforces the view that the Internet is not commonly used by the local Jewish residential population. According to the general secretary of Jewish affairs who is permanently in contact with Jewish communities throughout Germany: I would certainly say that it is not my generation (I am thirtysix). I think it is the generation to come. I use the Internet, of course, for e-mails and for research. But on the other hand, for daily news, I personally rely on the radio. First thing in the morning, when I get into the shower, I listen to the radio. It is not the local broadcasting center; it is nationwide. I watch the news on TV and that’s it (CNN, Herald Tribune, one of the major German newspapers). Reading Israeli newspapers is out of question due to the language barrier. I have to admit I don’t speak Hebrew. A few words, but not enough to really read something, which limits the flow of information I could have if I wanted to—I get some Internet clippings which I pay for and are provided to me—I really have enough. I cannot read all of that. The use of the Internet and the cell phone has affected everyday life in each of these diasporic communities differently. It has strengthened the links that already existed between the neighborhood and the respective homelands of origin: North Africa, in the case of Le Marais in Paris; the United States, Israel, Eastern Europe, India, and Yemen, in the cases of Stamford Hill and Golders Green in London; and Poland, Russia, the United States, and Israel, in regard to Scheunenviertel. It has also strengthened relations between family members spread throughout the world as a result of their departure from these homelands when

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these territories became independent nations. In addition, it has strengthened religious and business connections that already existed, but it makes them more operational and efficient. For example, the strong relations between the London neighborhoods and Antwerp are not duplicated elsewhere.

The Multimedia Environment of Jewish Neighborhoods The Jewish neighborhood must be seen as a multimedia environment in which at any time people use the information-technology tools they have access to or possess. The kosher store manager in the Jewish quarter in Paris is a good illustration of this phenomenon. I conducted several interviews in his shop late on weekday afternoons and was able to observe his activities. On any given day, he converses often with clients and patrons on the phone, especially if he needs to explain items in detail. He sends out orders by fax and receives confirmations by fax. As president of the Jewish Merchants’ Association, he also maintains an ongoing conversation through e-mail and chat rooms to advance the cause of the Jewish neighborhood to sympathizers who live outside Paris or in other countries. In this multimedia environment, he uses the various tools of communication in ways that complement each other. In so doing, residents resolve the problem of computer inaccessibility by employing other tools to communicate across class and national lines. Internet users who do not possess their own computers go to either an Internet café or the public library for free access. Those who nevertheless subscribe to an Internet provider pay their fees monthly, while others pay per hour in the Internet café. This can limit Internet use. The inconvenience of the public library in the Fourth Arrondissement is that computers are not always available. In Paris, one must reserve a seat at least a day in advance, while in Stamford Hill, reservations can be made on the same day, if computers are available. In Paris, library access is sometimes limited to e-mail only and is not available for Internet searches, while in Stamford Hill, both are available. In both places, young people and office workers can access the Internet at school or in the workplace.

Patterns of Internet Use Different patterns of Internet use emerge when analyzing the residents’ interviews. These patterns indicate the shape and parameters of global


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interaction undertaken in these neighborhoods. One pattern—nonresident use of the Internet café in the Jewish quarter of Paris—is an entirely new phenomenon because of its ephemeral aspects. The Internet café there is a main attraction for the young people who visit the quarter on Sunday afternoons and for those who want to use the Internet while remaining incognito and away from their place of residence while engaging in long-distance relationships. Because of the use of the Internet by outsiders, the Internet café becomes a locale where virtual relationships are formed, making the creation of such relations a transient operation by transient individuals. Such transient use does not affect the lives of residents, but cannot be ignored since it brings profit to neighborhood businesses and contributes to the lively atmosphere of the quarter with the young people it attracts to use its services. A pattern more central to the e-globalization of neighborhoods is use of the Internet by households for conversation about family matters, to exchange photos on special occasions, and to renew ties around festivals and holy days such as the Jewish New Year in September. The global family circuits that are activated on these occasions through online interactions are a driving force in the process of neighborhood globalization. Chat rooms constitute a more public forum, where participants discuss affairs of state, criticize government policies, and debate public policy issues. This public sphere is fed by Jews who are online and offer their opinions freely. In this way, local issues can be debated by individuals wherever they reside. Individuals who have a stake in finding ways of resolving contentious issues freely discuss views on Israel and events in the diaspora from different angles. The Internet has become not only the expression of the public sphere, but also of a global diasporic sphere. Another pattern involves commerce. The merchants who purchase foreign goods through the Internet have their own distinct global circuits. These global circuits have their own shape because goods are purchased in various parts of the globe, often influenced by the place of the origin of the store owner or the community. For example, Ashkenazi and Sephardic stores get their goods from different places overseas because these communities have distinct culinary traditions. In addition, the globalization of the local is one way that Internet and cell-phone users perpetuate their own and the neighborhood’s ethnic distinctiveness. Perhaps the most active Web site in the historic Jewish quarter in Paris is the one developed by the Jewish Merchants’ Association to preserve the ethnic identity of the neighborhood. Here, information concerning the position of the community on the

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renovation of the quarter by city hall is provided. The number of people who contribute positive or negative opinions indicates that the interest in the preservation of the quarter as a historic Jewish site goes beyond the geographical boundaries of the place and is a global movement, supported by former residents who now live in the United States, Israel, Switzerland, Belgium, and other parts of France. Finally, in a pattern with similar effects and implications, the use of the Israeli newspapers online by members of the neighborhoods indicates that the reconnecting to the homeland is a daily practice. This virtual sphere provides a global audience for newspapers and indicates a form of diasporic interest or participation in the affairs of the homeland state.

The Virtual Fragmentation of the Community While residents in Jewish quarters occupy the same contiguous geographical space, which allows them to communicate face-to-face with one another and thereby strengthen neighborhood ties, the Jewish community as a whole is still fragmented by diverse national origins and different extraterritorial sites where some family members live. This fragmentation is accentuated by communication with overseas family members, with social, political, and religious organizations abroad, and with virtual discussion groups of diverse ideological leanings that dissect the politics of Israel. In a sense, one may say that the neighborhood community appears united offline, where residents share the same place, but fragmented online as they reach out to different constituencies. Virtual fragmentation means that some Jews have closer relationships with the Jewish communities in New York, Los Angeles, Israel, or Antwerp than with others. It also means that Orthodox Jews have closer relationships online with similar overseas communities than with their nonreligious neighbors in the diasporic quarter. Online, Jews do not necessarily communicate with people in the same overseas territories. It all depends on the residential community’s migration history—whether they came from Israel, the United States, or elsewhere—and whether they are able to speak any foreign languages. Hence, there are two aspects to the virtual fragmentation of these globalized neighborhoods because of their Internet use. The first involves the divide between those who do a good portion of their social interaction locally and those who frequently use the Internet to communicate with friends and family abroad. The second involves the divide separating those who communicate online with people in a variety of different respec-


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tive homelands. There is also a social fragmentation that comes about because of the digital divide in the neighborhood. Here I am referring to poor and older Jewish households, whose members cannot access the computer because of language problems, inadequate access, and lack of the technical skills necessary to navigate online.

Diaspora and e-Globalization The interviews I’ve cited give us enough material to begin to piece together the characteristics and parameters of diasporic e-globalization on the basis of the border-crossing experiences of residents of the Jewish quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin. The transnational networks sustained by online practices are distinct blocks in the architecture of transglobal diasporic urbanism and are summarized below. Telepresence substitutes for physical presence. Transnational networks based on the multinational family organization enhanced by IT are predominant because they link family members who are living in different countries. The Internet makes it possible for family members living in various parts of the world to interact in real time. These online family interactions are the occasions for conversation, the sharing of information, and the exchange of photos in order to allow distant members to participate in family events if they are unable to travel for the gathering. Family interaction can be initiated by any member living in any country, and this brings the nuclear or extended family together virtually. This online interaction also attempts to bridge generational and linguistic gaps since all family members may not be fluent in the same language because they live in different countries. Homelands become virtual. Transnational networks based on common homelands and languages (and religious affiliations) constitute another type of global virtual interaction. The common homeland factor explains why and how more community members maintain relationships with people in certain specific countries. For example, border-crossing practices in the Jewish quarter in Paris with North African states like Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco can be contrasted with those in Scheunenviertel, where the network with the United States is strongest, and with Stamford Hill, where relations with Antwerp have been most beneficial. We can see that e-business facilitates e-globalization and enhances revenue. The transactional e-globalization of business practices brings the global to the local, but also globalizes the local. Transactional e-globalization in these quarters occurs mostly in the ordering of items

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from elsewhere to be sold in the neighborhood. None of the managers of local shops in the historic Jewish quarters of Paris or Berlin whom I interviewed are involved in online selling—except when the occasional client asks a bookshop owner to reserve a book. Some shop owners find it easier to send a fax with the order, as in the case of a kosher shop in Le Marais, or send it by e-mail, as in the case of a Parisian bookshop that orders books from Israel and New York to be sold mostly to Jewish American tourists when they visit. In any case, these are likely to be local transactions, not originated overseas. The situation is much different in London, however, where the online business traffic between Stamford Hill and Israel or Antwerp is a lot stronger. Transactional e-globalization is not necessarily based on the ties of family, homeland, or religious affiliation. It is driven by profit and the need to maintain a flourishing business in the quarter. IT is a means used by these diasporic Jewish entrepreneurs to contact producers or distributors abroad and efficiently enhance profit maximization. Virtuality allows associations to operate on a global scale. Associational e-globalization is another type of virtual diasporic border crossing. An example is what occurs on the Web site of the Jewish Merchants’ Association in Paris, where people from all over the world discuss the controversy over the renovation of the quarter proposed by city hall. In addition, both religious and secular Jewish associations interact with overseas contacts based on the kind of work they do in the community. The rabbis in charge of congregations in all four neighborhoods use overseas contacts to raise funds for Israel or other diasporic communities in distress and to respond to inquiries from Jewish tourists who want to attend Shabbat services while visiting the neighborhoods. The London Jewish community has set up an online form for visitors to indicate where they want to attend Shabbat services by indicating whether they prefer a Conservative, Reform, or Orthodox synagogue. These associations develop in online communications as part of work practices. Virtuality also makes possible institutional e-globalization. Multinational institutional e-globalization occurs among branches of the same institutions implanted in various countries. These offshoot branches maintain some level of autonomy, but since they are tentacles of the same organization, they are in constant synergy with each other through virtual communication. In other words, officers in these branches, spread over several countries, engage in online interaction with other offices to provide input on policies, share information, and discuss matters of common concern. The Leo Baeck Institute, with offices in Jerusalem, New York, London, and Berlin is a good example of multinational


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institutional e-globalization in action. This form of e-globalization from below is undertaken so that each of these communities can benefit from the experience of the others and the leadership can have a good sense of what is going on and which direction to follow. This study of the implosion of Internet and cell-phone use in these Jewish neighborhoods sheds much light on the geometry of diasporic e-globalization and the parameters of a reinvigorated form of transglobal diasporic urbanism. These quarters emerge as nodes of global networks that constitute a new expression of urbanism, that is, an urbanism anchored in both locality and globality and in virtuality and reality. This urbanism indicates the strong and weak linkages, the directions of relations, the intensity of flows, and the expansive and hybrid logic constitutive of these transnational interactions enhanced and forged by the use of information technology.


Chapter 11


T

he spaces of globalization are not uniform because they include different places with unique traditions, cultures, and histories that make the whole circuit a coherent, but diversified landscape of networks of nodes. Each place deploys its own mode of globalization and relates to extralocal units in ways that enhance the global complex of which it is a part. The European Jewish diasporic neighborhood is one example of such a place. It is influenced and shaped by both the global metropolis in which it is incorporated and the formal institutions of the ethnic group located outside the historic enclave. While the previous chapters discuss and document the extent of the relations of these neighborhoods with municipal governments, putative homelands, and other diasporic sites in other countries, they pay little attention to the role of formal Jewish institutions outside the enclave. These, too, must be analyzed in order to comprehend fully the internal dynamic of the social organization of the Jewish neighborhood in the European Union as a pivotal node of transglobal diasporic urbanism. It must be said at the outset that the Jewish neighborhoods examined in this study are only a small fraction of the Jewish population in Paris, London, and Berlin. The rest of the population lives elsewhere in integrated neighborhoods. Intraurban Jewish migration in these cities is usually not from an integrated neighborhood to the historic enclave, but rather from the enclave to an integrated neighborhood, because this movement toward deghettoization is seen by the larger community as a sign of success, progress, and upward mobility. In this local urban network of multiple nodes, the everyday life of the enclave is intertwined with Jewish life in the integrated neighborhoods through family relations, patronage of shops, synagogue attendance, and the staffing of social services centers and public facilities because some of the workers in these offices live elsewhere in the city. The synergy that exists between the enclave and the larger urban diasporic community is a natural one that benefits both sides, but also sheds light on the development of these sites. 195

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To explain the specificity of the Jewish organizational context in which these neighborhoods of globalization operate, this chapter first attempts to provide a demographic profile of the Jewish populations of Paris, London, and Berlin by identifying areas in the city where the diaspora is concentrated, presenting maps and the best estimates of the population available along with some ethnographic observations. None of these neighborhoods coincides with the boundaries of the administrative districts of the municipality. Some even span more than one administrative district. While the Paris enclave of Le Marais is shrinking, the Berlin neighborhood of Sheunenviertel exists more in terms of recuperated buildings than as a residential Jewish neighborhood; in contrast, the two London neighborhoods of Stamford Hill and Golders Green are expanding as a result of international migration, mostly from Eastern Europe and Israel. The chapter then explains how formal Jewish organizations located outside the historic enclaves in the cities influence the developmental paths of the neighborhoods. They affect the neighborhood in different ways, and their influence is felt more in some periods than in others. In any case, their contribution to the daily life and institutions in the neighborhood should not be ignored. For some, the influence is direct because they sponsor personnel, serve as trustees, do different types of volunteer work in institutions that cater to the neighborhood community, or contribute financially to local organizations; in other cases, they affect the enclave only indirectly, by influencing state policies and formal institutions’ agendas so that their implementation may positively enhance and benefit the neighborhood. Finally, the chapter discusses various aspects of the macrostructural context that also influences the evolution of the neighborhoods. One can think here of the relations of Israel with the governments of France, Germany, and England (political, diplomatic, military, and trade relations); the Jewish philanthropic organizations that have their subsidiaries in these countries; Jewish organizations that function at the level of the European Union; and the multinational firms that move people around, either to Israel or to any of these countries, especially firms that are in the technology field (mostly biotechnology and information technology). The chapter explains how these different actors contribute directly or indirectly and minimally or maximally to the well-being of these neighborhoods. The sociological literature has yet to tackle in a systematic fashion intragroup relations between ethnic immigrants, let alone between immigrants and multinational and transnational entities. Some research has pointed out differences between the parameters of the “ethnic” and “enclave” economies, emphasizing that the ethnic economy includes


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also the entrepreneurial activities of the group outside the historic quarter, while the enclave economy operates exclusively in the ghettoized area.1 Some other researchers have shown how the geographical dispersion of the group helps explain upward ethnic spatial mobility from a poor enclave to a middle-class or richer neighborhood.2 Still other studies have shown how immigration streams have fed one enclave at the expense of others, thereby contributing to the difference in status of communities that share the same ethnicity.3 This chapter, in contrast, moves the discussion in another direction. It attempts to explain and document how formal institutions of the group managed by people outside the enclave affect the Jewish quarter and how their interventions enter into the mathematics of the globalization of the neighborhood.

Demographic and Geographical Profiles The Jewish neighborhoods in Paris, London, and Berlin are not simply post-Holocaust communities in the sense that they are remnants of communities that existed prior to the Holocaust. Instead, they are for the most part new or reconstituted communities—communities that have remade themselves since the Holocaust.4 In Paris, the Ashkenazi residents of Le Marais lost control over the neighborhood as a result of the Holocaust. Some were deported to concentration camps, while others fled the area to save their lives. After the war and as a consequence of the decolonization and independence movement in which North African countries participated, Sephardic refugees from these liberated states resettled in the neighborhood. Now they constitute the majority of the Jewish population in Le Marais. In London, the Holocaust refugees from Central and Eastern Europe and Jewish immigrants from India, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Morocco, and Yemen have contributed to the redistribution of the population. The large Ashkenazi Jewish community in Whitechapel in the preHolocaust years has shrunk at the expense of the new communities in North and Northwest London. In Berlin, the pre-Holocaust community of Scheunenviertel was mostly decimated by the Nazis, and few were able to emigrate, either to the United States or to Palestine and later to Israel. The Jews of Berlin today are mostly either immigrants from the former Soviet Union or Holocaust survivors and members of their families who came there directly from the concentration camps or after the reunification of Germany, plus a handful of returnees from the United States and new immigrants from Israel.

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Jewish Paris The Jewish quarter in Le Marais is not the only neighborhood with a visible Jewish presence in Paris. The Belleville neighborhood in the Twentieth Arrondissement, known as “Le Petit Jérusalem” (“Little Jerusalem”) because of its Jewish residents, many of whom have emigrated from Tunisia,5 also has a sizable Jewish population. Other visible Jewish concentrations in metropolitan Paris, including its suburbs, can be found in Sarcelles, Massy-Antony, Villiers-Le-Bel, Creteil, Garges, and Courneuve, as well as in the following boroughs: the Fourth, Tenth, Twelfth, Fourteenth, Sixteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Arrondissements. The historic Jewish quarter is no longer the most populous Jewish neighborhood in Metro-Paris, partly because of the Holocaust and later emigration to the suburbs and upward mobility and partly because of the high cost of housing and gentrification. It represents less than 20 percent of the Parisian Jewish population. The most populous Jewish neighborhood is now located in the Nineteenth Arrondissement.6 However, a large portion of the Jewish bourgeoisie resides in the Sixteenth Arrondissement and includes Jews born in France (60.8 percent), in Algeria (15 percent), and in Tunisia and Morocco (5.5 percent).7 Other members of this social class also can be found in the Fourteenth Arrondissement or dispersed throughout the city. Concentrations of less fortunate Jews can be found in Belleville, St. Paul, and Faubourg-Montmartre. While Le Marais is known as the historic Jewish quarter, from the end of the nineteenth century until very recently, Le Sentier was an area with a large concentration of Jewish textile workers and clothing shops.8 In the post–World War II years, Ashkenazi textile workers in Le Sentier were replaced by and large by new Jewish immigrants from North Africa. The Paris landscape is socially stratified, with upper-class, middle-class, and working-class neighborhoods. Often, migration from a lower-class neighborhood is either to another working-class or middleclass Jewish neighborhood. When that occurs, individuals remain within the circuit of transglobal diasporic urbanism. The French Jewish population increased from 1944 until about 1990; it was estimated to be 180,000 in 1944, 225,000 in 1950, 360,000 in 1960, and 535,000 in 1970 and 1980. In 1980, Doris Bensimon and Sergio Della Pergola estimated that 43.9 percent of the Jewish population living in Metro-Paris was born in France and 38.15 percent was born in Algeria, Tunisia, or Morocco. According to these researchers, there were more Algerians residing in the suburbs of Paris than in Paris; Jewish immigrants from Central Europe (Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia) and Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia, Romania) made


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Map 11.1 Jewish Quarter of Le Marais in Paris up 10 percent of the Jewish population; and the rest was composed of immigrants from other parts of the world.9 The Jewish population was estimated in the mid-1980s to be between 8 percent and 10 percent of the total population of Paris.10 According to a 2003 survey of French Jewry, more than a quarter of Jews in Paris live in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Arrondissements.11 However, while the Jewish population in France has remained more or less stable between 1990 and 2000, in Germany, it has steadily increased, and in Great Britain, it has consistently decreased.12 Table 11.1 shows the evolution of the demography of French Jewry between 1990 and 2005 with a breakdown for Paris, as well.


200 Table 11.1

Year 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Jewish Paris Total Population of France

Total Jewish Population

Population of Paris

530,000

9,331,000 9,319,367

56,615,000 58,604,851 58,885,929 59,104,320 59,315,139 59,522,297 59,726,386 59,934,884 60,158,533 60,281,637 60,853,087 61,235,879 61,615,260 61,984,000 62,370,800

530,000 530,000

Jewish Population of Paris

310,000 9,510,000

524,000 522,000

521,000 520,000 519,000 498,000 494,000

310,000 310,000 9,644,507 9,692,000

9,820,000

310,000 310,000 284,000 284,000 284,000

Sources: American Jewish Yearbook (1990–2005), Eurostat (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (http://www.un.org/esa/).

These numbers are estimates based on three surveys and on synagogue records for registered births, marriages, divorces, and deaths.13 The French state does not compile statistics on the basis of ethnicity or religion because it is against French law; without these categories, it is impossible to disaggregate the population of ethnic neighborhoods or ethnic communities from the national census. The intent of the law is to remind people that they are above all French citizens and thus to prevent the Balkanization of the population. The estimates of the Jewish population in Paris, Berlin, and London presented in this chapter come from mainly Jewish researchers and institutions as recorded in the American Jewish Yearbook or from programmatic research sponsored by the Board of Deputies of British Jews or the Fonds Social Juif Unifié (United Jewish Philanthropic Fund, FSJU). Before World War II, Central and Eastern Europe were the main sources of Jewish immigration into France; after the war, North Africa became the principal point of origin. Ashkenazi Jews have lost their dominant position to the incoming Sephardic immigrants. This is seen most visibly with the election of the Sephardic rabbi, René Samuel Sirat—born in Bone, Algeria—as chief rabbi of France in June 1980.


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He was succeeded in 1987 by Joseph Sitruk, another Sephardic rabbi and an immigrant from Tunisia.14 To accommodate this massive Sephardic immigration, the Consistoire de France—the official state-approved institution in charge of the religious community—in cooperation with the Fonds Social Juif Unifié, built a number of new synagogues in Creteil, Sarcelles, MassyAntony, and Orly and many more in the rest of the country where the Sephardic immigrants resettled.15 According to some observers, this accommodation has further contributed to the Sephardization of the rabbinate because Sephardic rabbis have been elected to serve these congregations and occupy prominent roles in the consistorial system. Moreover, the Jewish community has its own parallel elementary and high school system, and youngsters have a choice among attending a public, private, congregational Christian, or Jewish school. The Jewish school system in Paris includes, in addition to kindergartens, the Ecole Lucien de Hirsch, the Lycée Maimonide, the Ecole Yabneh, the Ecole Normale Israelite Orientale, the Ecole de l’Alliance Israelite Universelle, and the professional schools of ORT (the Organisation pour la Reconstruction par le Travail) and other schools, including the Ecole Rabbinique de France. The Jewish community in France has an official supragovernance structure through which it interacts with the state.16 This formal governance structure contains both religious and secular components. The chief rabbi and the lay president of the Consistoire de France manage this national leadership structure together. The Consistoire de France, established in 1808 during the regime of Napoleon I, is a legitimate religious governance structure duly recognized by the state. Napoleon wanted the Jews to develop a parallel system similar to the Catholic Church whereby the state government would deal with a centralized authority, instead of dealing with several groups or factions. That was the rationale of the policy that led to the establishment of the consistoire. The structure was recalibrated in 1945, taking into consideration the evolution of state structures and the new needs of the post-Holocaust community. In this scheme, the authority mandated to manage Jewish affairs consists of a central consistory and departmental consistories. Each consistory is made up of a chief rabbi in charge of religious affairs and a civilian president in charge of secular matters. These are elective offices for limited terms. In theory, all the Jewish religious communities and synagogues depend on the central consistory and the consistory of their department, but, in practice, a few of them function outside this structure, and their activities (synagogue, kashrut, marriage, conversion) are not sanctioned by the consistory. For example, the ultra-Orthodox

202


Lubavitch community does not fall under the aegis of the Consistoire de France, but has developed its own form of governance. Although the Consistoire de France plays a central role in the religious life of Jews because it governs the creation and organization of synagogues that function under its aegis (including doctrinal, dietary, and liturgical practices), other institutions are also important in the life of the community. For example, the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) has been more concerned with the education of youngsters, with making academic resources available to the community, and with human rights at home and abroad. The Appel Unifié Juif de France (AUJF) contributes a large proportion of the money it collects to the budgetary operation of the Fonds Social Juif Unifié, which focuses its activities on the integration of the community in France.17 In contrast, the Fédération des Organisations Sionistes de France (FOSF) helps people decide to make aliya (literally going up, or a return) to Israel, since its goal is the consolidation of the state of Israel and the migration of diaspora Jews to the conquered biblical homeland. Jewish London Just as the majority of French Jews live in Paris, the majority of British Jews live in metropolitan London (Table 11.2). The Jewish population in Great Britain was estimated to be 450,000 in 1965, with about 280,000 Jews—that is, more than half—residing in London. In terms of residential patterns, the borough of Barnet had approximately 19 percent and the borough of Hackney 16 percent of the Jewish population, and these constituted the two main areas with the strongest concentration of Jews in London.18 By 1974, the population was estimated to be 408,311, with 259,100 living in London. Among them, 58,100 lived in Barnet, the borough with the largest Jewish population in London. Other boroughs, such as Brent, Enfield, Harrow, and Redbridge also had sizable shares of Jewish residents.19 In 1980, the Jewish population in Britain fell to 330,000, with more than 200,000 Jews living in London, half of them residing in the boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Camden, Harrow, and Redbridge. According to Geoffrey Paul, “while the mass of London Jewry was located in well-to-do suburbs, 10,000 lived in east London and nearly 25,000, mainly Chasidim, inhabited the north London boroughs of Hackney and Haringey.”20

Neighborhoods of Globalization Table 11.2

203

Jewish London

Year

Total Population of the UK

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

57,156,972 57,338,199 57,511,594 57,649,210 57,788,017 57,943,472 58,094,587 58,239,312 58,394,596 58,579,685 58,785,246 58,999,781 59,217,592 58,437,723 59,699,828 60,068,000


Population of London

Jewish Population of London

7,654,000 300,000

294,000

215,000 7,908,000

238,000 280,000

276,000 266,740

7,074,265

210,000 195,000

8,225,000 149,789

8,505,000

Sources: American Jewish Yearbook (1990–2005), Eurostat (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (http://www.un.org/esa/), UK 2001 Census (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census/).

The 2001 UK Census estimated the total Jewish population in the United Kingdom to be 266,740, a significant decrease in relation to the 283,000 for 1996 estimated by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.21 The total Jewish population in London, according to this same census, is 149,789. The borough of Hackney, where Stamford Hill is located, has experienced a similar downward spiraling of its mostly Hasidic Jewish population. Estimated to be 17,900 in 1996 by a De Montfort University report, by 2001, it was reduced to less than 10,732, according to the UK 2001 Census.22 The constant demographic decrease of the Jewish population in London has been explained in terms of “low birth-rates, emigration (especially to North America and Israel) and assimilation.”23 According to social anthropologist Simon Dein, Stamford Hill has a “population of about twenty-seven thousand people in an area of three square miles. Less than half of the population of Stamford Hill are Jews, mainly lower-middle-class tradesmen, religious teachers

204

Map 11.2


Jewish Neighborhood of Stamford Hill in London

and businessmen. . . . There are no streets in Stamford Hill where only Jews reside.”24 This researcher gives a much higher estimate of the Jewish population in Stamford Hill for the same period than the UK 2001 Census does. The boroughs with the largest concentration of Jews in London in 2001 were Barnet (46,686), Redbridge (14,796), Harrow (13,112), Camden (11,153), and Hackney (10,732). Stamford Hill is a neighbor-


205

hood in Hackney, while Golders Green is one of the wards in Barnet. Golders Green has a total population of 16,249 inhabitants, among them 29.5 percent, or 4,790, are Jews, according to the UK 2001 Census. The neighborhood covers an area of three square kilometers and is also the home of Muslims (8 percent), Hindus (5 percent), Buddhists (1 percent), Christians (30 percent), and others.

Map 11.3 Jewish Neighborhood of Golders Green in London

206


The neighborhoods of Stamford Hill and Golders Green are sites for the operation and intervention of formal Jewish institutions, such as the chief rabbinate and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Some are local agencies controlled and managed by the residents of the neighborhood. For example, a local institution such as the Agudas Israel Community Services caters to the various needs of this ultra-Orthodox community, which is part of a global network with major tentacles in New York, Tel Aviv, and Antwerp. The following formal institutions, among many others located outside the enclave, serve the various needs of the metropolitan London’s Jewish population: The United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA) supplies social services to the needy, refugees, and disadvantaged Jewish immigrants; Jewish Care caters to the health of senior citizens and provides them with recreational activities; the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) focuses its activities on the integration and social needs of women and children, both in London and in Israel; and Norwood Ravenswood focuses its interventions on helping children and families. Strong ties between British London and Israel have been developed because of aliyah, tourism (family visits and sightseeing), trade (import and export ventures), and the programmatic year or semester some rabbinical students and others spend in Israel. In chapter 6, we explained how local entrepreneurs purchase goods in Israel and resell them in the enclave. Formal Jewish firms located outside the enclave have also developed transnational transactional business practices with the homeland. For example, according to Levenberg “many Jewish firms [in London have been] involved in the expansion of trade with Israel.”25 Israel also plays a central role in the evolution of Jewish London because, in addition to these commercial, cultural, and religious links that tie the two together, each major crisis in Israel leads to “fundraising and public display of pro-Israel manifestations of solidarity” or even to “the dispatch of a large contingent of volunteers,” as happened during the Six Days’ War of 1967.26 Jewish neighborhood congregations of Greater London also have joined forces with international formal Jewish organizations to help Jewish communities in distress in other countries. For example, neighborhoods have been paired up with overseas entities in a partnership to become “sister congregations.” This international outreach is one more tentacle that interlinks Jewish communities worldwide and feeds the growth of and sustains transglobal diasporic urbanism. Sometimes the contribution of a Jewish formal institution to the rebuilding of another community is one of the incentives that may lead to the formal creation of sister congregations. For example, Miriam and Lionel


207

Kochan report that, in 2002, the “Dunstan Road Congregation, Golders Green, North London, adopted the 20,000-member community in Zaporozhye, where World Jewish Relief supported a Jewish day school as well as communal and welfare projects.”27 They further note that “in August [2000] the North-Western Reform Synagogue in London’s Golders Green presented a Torah scroll to its twin congregation in Kerch, Ukraine; in September a new technology center in Dniepropetrovsk, created through a partnership between London’s Lubavitch community and World ORT, was one of the five Ukrainian centers opened during a six-day ORT mission; and World Jewish Relief (WJR) opened the Sunflower Center at Kiev’s Solomon Jewish University.”28 Jewish Berlin The Jewish community in Berlin is visible in three main areas in the city because of the social services offices located there and because of the residential Jewish population in or near these areas. These three places are Scheunenviertel, where the Centrum Judaicum/Neue Synagoge, the Jewish High School, the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland, the Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland (the Central Jewish Welfare Office, ZWST), other community buildings such as the Adass Jisroel Community Center and the Rabbinical School, and kosher restaurants and shops, such as the Beth Café (Adass Jisroel) and Kolbo; the Rykestrasse synagogue and the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation/Lauder Judisches Lehrhaus in the midst of a Jewish community formerly in East Berlin; and in the Fasanenstrasse area in the western part of Berlin, where a larger community resides in Charlottenburg and vicinity, an area that is the home for Jewish institutions or organizations such as the Jewish Community Center, the Bundesverband Judischer Studenten in Deutschland (BJSD), Chabad Lubawitsch Berlin, It’s Gabriels Koscheres Restaurant, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and Keren Kayemeth LeisraelJudischer Nationalfonds. In terms of social class, the residents in the Rykestrasse area (in the former East Berlin) are lower middle class, while those in Charlottenburg and Wilmersdorf (in the former West Berlin) are upper middle class. The Berlin suburb of Potsdam constitutes a middle-class area of Jewish residential concentration. The Jewish population in Germany was estimated to be 115,000 in 2005, with a concentration of 13,000 in Berlin made up of descendants of pre-Holocaust families, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Israelis, and Americans (Table 11.3). Russian-speaking immigrants make up close to half of the total Jewish population, with the poorer ones living in the Rykestrasse area, the richer ones residing in the Charlottenburg area. In addition to the former Soviet Union, Israel is a major


208 Table 11.3

Jewish Berlin

Year

Total Population of Germany


Population of Berlin

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

79,112,831 79,753,227 80,274,564 80,974,632 81,338,093 81,538,603 81,817,499 82,012,162 82,057,379 82,037,011 82,163,475 82,259,540 82,440,309 82,536,680 82,531,700 82,490,000

30,000 42,500

3,434,000

55,000

Jewish Population of Berlin

10,000 3,471,000

70,000 78,000

92,000 98,000 103,000 108,000 112,000 115,000

3,458,763 3,425,759 3,392,000

11,000 11,250 11,278

3,388,477 3,387,828 3,389,000

Sources: American Jewish Yearbook (1990–2005), Eurostat (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (http://www.un.org/esa/).

source of this immigration. According to Peter Laufer, a former NBC News correspondent in Germany, “applications for German citizenship were filed at Germany’s Tel Aviv embassy by more than fifteen hundred Israelis in 2001, and some twice that in 2002.”29 The responsibility for the governance and administration of the affairs of the Jewish community in Berlin rests with the Assembly of Representatives of the Gemeinde. The Gemeinde basically administers the affiliated synagogues, a hospital, cemeteries, and schools. The Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland functions at the national and local levels and is in charge of the protection of each local community and their interface with the German authorities. As the late Ignatz Bubis, former president of the Zentralrat, put it, “the Central Council is an exclusively political organization representing Jewish communities in Germany.”30 The role played by the consistoire in Paris is accomplished here by the Einheitsgemeinde, a unified administrative structure composed of various leaders of the religious Jewish community in Berlin. Some synagogues, such as Adass Jisroel, are not affiliated with this institution, however. Adass Jisroel maintains a separate administrative structure of governance known as Israelitische Synagogen-Gemeinde (Adass Jisroel) zu Berlin.


Map 11.4

209

Jewish Quarter of Scheunenviertel in Berlin

Some of the formal Jewish institutions in Berlin are supported by or are branches of organizations whose headquarters are elsewhere, as in the case of the Lauder Judisches Lehrhaus, sponsored by the Ronald Lauder Foundation, which trains future teachers, or the Berlin offices of the American Jewish Committee, the European Jewish Congress, the B’nai B’rith Youth, Friends of the Hebrew University, and others.31 Some of these organizations are geared toward helping Israel, such as the Jewish Agency for Israel, WIZO Berlin, or the Forderer des Bikur Cholim Hospital in Jerusalem, while others, such as the Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland or Chabad Lubawitsch Berlin focus their efforts on providing services to the local community.

Formal Jewish Institutions and the Neighborhood Some formal institutions represent the interests of the Jewish community to the rest of the country and are called on to make public statements whenever a problem that affects Jews arises. They are also supposed to look for redress when government officials fail to meet the expectations of the community, as happened when the Board of

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Deputies of British Jews, an official representative body of the community, complained that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had failed to prosecute five men who were caught distributing anti-Semitic literature in the Stamford Hill neighborhood in April 2001 on the occasion of a public gathering celebrating Israel’s Independence Day.32 The Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, known also as the CRIF) fulfills a similar function in France as watchdog for the community. On occasions, it organizes public protests to sensitize the population against the rise of anti-Semitism in France and to encourage the public to uphold the republican values of tolerance. For example, the CRIF organized a huge march in Paris on April 7, 2002, with the slogan “Against Anti-Semitism, For Israel” that attracted a large crowd of Jews and non-Jewish sympathizers.33 After the explosion of a bomb on Friday, October 3, 1980, in front of the synagogue on Copernic Street (in the Sixteenth Arrondissement), which caused four deaths, the CRIF, Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan, and the president of the French section of the World Jewish Congress all raised their voices against this outrageous crime at the same time as the mass protests organized for the occasion. In Germany, the Central Council of Jews in Germany (CCJG) has been at the forefront of the representation of Jewish interests in the Federal Republic. It has publicly requested more police protection for Jewish gatherings and sites as a result of the rise of anti-Semitism and events in the Middle East and has organized security workshops for local communities. Other institutions with a more limited scope, such as the Conference for Jewish Material Claims against Germany, target more specific areas of concern. Formal organizations have taken a keen interest in the issue of the integration of Jewish immigrants. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has been a leader during the post–World War II years as a central purveyor of funds to assist the integration of North African Jews in Paris and Holocaust survivors in Central and Eastern Europe. This was done in coordination with the Fonds Social Juif Unifié and the Comité d’Action Sociale Israélite de Paris (The Jewish Social Action Committee of Paris). In Germany, the Zentralwohlfahrtstelle has been very much involved with the integration of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union by offering classes, for example, on “German culture, the German labor market, and basic Judaism.”34 Sometimes formal institutions provide a national linkage to neighborhood organizations so as to deghettoize them or make them operative within the larger network of Jewish institutions. For example, Beth Midrash Netzach Israel in Golders Green, North-West London, was


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incorporated in 2001 as a member of the Federation of Synagogues.35 It became the first Sephardic synagogue to join the federation. Also, formal organizations are a major conduit through which gender inclusion occurs in Jewish institutions, with consequences for the neighborhood organizations. The selection of seven women as members of the leadership team of the Paris consistory in 2001 meant that women have become more visible in the governance of the Jewish community, the authority structure has become more representative of the group, and the local neighborhoods have a better opportunity to make their problems known to the consistory. Some even speak of the “feminization of the Consistory.”36 The role of a formal institution such as the consistoire becomes more visible in the neighborhood in matters related to kashrut because their handling of the process affects the Jewish neighborhoods in two distinct and prominent ways.37 First, the authority to certify whether one is allowed to sell kosher products comes from outside the neighborhood, and the consistoire may cause the disappearance of a shop in the enclave. It happens when the Beth Din refuses to give the necessary certification allowing a shop to identify itself as a kosher operation. The appearance or disappearance of kosher signs in front of shops may mean the survival or extinction of these businesses. Since the fee (called “consistorial taxes”) that these shops pay for that recognition is a source of revenue for the consistoire, failure to pay back fees may contribute to the decertification of one’s shop.38 Second, the departmental consistoire may or may not give its approval to kosher products imported from elsewhere, as happened with the importation of kosher meat from Uruguay done under the supervision of the chief rabbinate of Israel during the mad cow and foot-and-mouth-disease crisis. If it were not for a strategic intervention of the Consistoire de France, the Consistoire de Paris would not have allowed its kosher label to be placed on such products.39 If that prohibition had prevailed, the Consistoire de Paris would have lost revenue since it cannot impose fees on such imported items the way it does on French products. Either way, a neighborhood shop may cease to operate not because of lack of clientele or local competition, but simply because the owner is unable to get a certification from the Beth Din attesting to the authenticity of its kosher products. Sometimes a formal organization such as the United Synagogue, a federation of Orthodox synagogues in London, is called on to mediate and seek the resolution of an immediate problem that an individual or community is facing. For example, leaders of the United Synagogue intervened twice in Golders Green in 1999 to resolve the problem of

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a recalcitrant husband who had refused to allow his wife to proceed with a religious divorce. The second time was to mediate to end “a dispute with an alternative minyan [the quorum required for communal worship], aiming for a more informal and participatory service, at Golders Green Synagogue, North West London.”40 Sometimes formal organizations intervene in the affairs of local communities to provide them with new directions. Once the central leadership finds a community to be vulnerable to forces that might weaken it, they intervene to redress the situation. Wendy Kloke speaks of the implementation of a pilot leadership seminar “cosponsored by the CWA and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) for 220 board members from 12 communities located in the former East Germany. . . . Another CWA initiative enabled young religious Israelis who opted to do community service instead of going into the army to teach religion and Jewish tradition to Soviet immigrants in German communities.”41 An institution may be located in the neighborhood, but controlled and managed by a formal organization with national or international scope. One can think here of the network of Jewish schools in Paris, Berlin, and London whose management falls under the supervision of the Gemeinde, the Board of Directors of British Jews, or the Alliance Israelite Universelle. The decision to move a school from one site to another may depend more on this management organization than on the residents of the local neighborhood. That is so because the organization is as concerned about the well-being of the network as it is about the well-being of each node. The Jewish communities of Paris, Berlin, and London each have their own newspaper that relays the news of the various communities to each other and provides news of other diasporic sites and Israel. Information Juive, L’Arche (monthly), Tribune Juive, and Actualité Juive (newsweekly) are important sources of news for the larger Jewish community in Paris; the London Jewish News and The Jewish Chronicle, a major newspaper for British Jews, along with more religious community orientated publications such as Chabad Magazine and Moshiach Times, published by the Lubavitch of Stamford Hill, fill the same needs for the Jewish community in London; and the Judische Allgemeine Wochenzeitung (a weekly newspaper), the monthly bulletin Berlin Umschau of the Judische Gemeinde (Jewish community), and, to a lesser extent, Aufbau do likewise for the Jewish community in Berlin. These Jewish newspapers serve as mirrors in which the communities learn about themselves and reaffirm their distinct identities. Other Jewish media in Paris, for example, consist of TJF (Jewish television), Internet sites


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such as Judeo, Judeotel, and Hebraica, and Web sites maintained by formal and informal organizations or associations, plus Radio-Shalom, Radio-J, Judaiques-FM, and Radio Communauté.42 Similar media also exist in Berlin and London. Another area where formal Jewish institutions outside the enclave play a role in the neighborhood is in the security arena. The security of the local neighborhoods depends to a great extent on formal organizations of the larger Jewish community. In Paris, the Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive sponsored by the CRIF, the Consistoire de Paris, and the Fonds Social Juif Unifié monitors anti-Semitic activities in the neighborhoods and develops measures to prevent and combat them through its cooperation with the municipal police and other agencies of the central government. For example, on October 8, 2000, both Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk and the president of the CRIF met with President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to request more police protection around the synagogues on the occasion of the celebration of the Yom Kippur festivities because they believed that the second Intifada was responsible for the rise of tension and sporadic attacks on Jewish people and property in Paris.43 In matters of security, Israel on occasion becomes part of the local scene as its secret services inform local actors of potential problems in the neighborhoods, because of what happens in another diasporic site, because of Israel’s engagement with its Arab neighbors, or because of some Middle East crisis. For example, The Jerusalem Post reported on July 23, 2006, that “the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency] confirmed to the Post Sunday night that it had instructed embassies, consulates and Jewish institutions it was responsible for abroad to raise their level of awareness in light of the conflict in the North.” Since these diasporic nodes are interconnected globally, a problem in one is likely to affect the others as well. In this interconnected network of nodes, Israel appears as the site of safe refuge, as well as a site capable of protecting or at least intervening on behalf of any diasporic sites. However, even in the security domain, these diasporic communities do not operate with a single, monolithic voice. Instead, one sees various points of friction between community members, based not only on religious views and affiliation, Israel governmental policies, or integration practices, but also on acceptable ways of ensuring the security of Jewish people and sites in the diaspora. For example, after Andreas Nachama, president of the Berlin Jewish community, “announced in February [2000] that Berlin’s local government had agreed to provide DM 2.5 million for security measures for the Jewish community, including the hiring of highly trained Israeli security guards to be posted

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inside its buildings, Julius Schoeps, director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center in Potsdam and a member of the community’s Representative Assembly, protested against the agreement on national television. He argued that the presence of Israeli guards, as opposed to the German police who guarded the exteriors of the buildings, transformed the Berlin Jewish community into an ‘extraterritorial zone.’ ”44 Political, military, and trade relations between Israel and Germany, France, and England are another area that can be used to gauge how these formal structures play a role in the overall integration of global neighborhoods. These relations provide a context that contributes to integration, but can also cause uneasiness in periods of crisis. Toby Axelrod notes that “military cooperation between Germany and Israel had been close for years. Israel was Germany’s seventh largest military client, and Germany was Israel’s second biggest supplier, after the US. In 2000 . . . Germany sold Israel military equipment worth $170 million, including torpedoes and parts for tanks and armored cars.” And in 2002, “two patriot missiles were delivered on loan for two years.”45 Jewish employees of Israeli firms with branches in England, France, or Germany or Jewish firms in these countries with branches in Israel, or even American firms with branches in all of these countries, provide another layer of interaction of these neighborhoods with these global players. In this case, one can think, for example, of the Israeli or Jewish technicians or managers who have been transferred from France to Israel or from Israel to France. The following are just a few of the Israeli firms in France: Aladdin Western Europe, Alvarion, Banque Hapoalim, Bank Leumi Le-Israel B. M., Bosanova, Check Point, Cimatron France, ECI Telecom, E-Sim Europe, EL AL, Israel Aircraft Industries, Israel Discount Bank, Magic Software, Rad Data Communications, Radware, Sapiens France, and Sintec Media. These firms are engaged mostly in transportation, aeronautics, banking, and information technology. Such entities bring new immigrants to these European countries, but firms located in Israel also serve as a magnet for Jewish technicians in England, France, and Germany. Firms located in Israel that in the past have attracted Jews from these countries are the following: Motorola, Cisco Systems, Applied Materials, Mercury, Com.Match, Elbit Systems Ltd., ECI Telecom, Telrad Tenecs, Intel, Diaslogic Corporation, Synergix, Net Eye, Tower, and Amdocs (Israel). These high-tech headquarters and subsidiary companies are located in “Jerusalem’s Industrial Center, the Israel Diamond Exchange in Ramat Gan, downtown Tel Aviv, Ra’annana’s new industrial area, the affluent Herzlia Pituach area, Haifa’s technology park along side the sea, as well as new industrial areas in Carmiel up North, and Omer in the South.”46


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These high-tech workers influence the everyday life of the Jewish neighborhood in Paris in three distinct ways. First, some patronize the shops and restaurants and thereby allow these businesses to continue to prosper, even though these clients may not live there. Their presence in the neighborhood to buy things, attend services at the synagogue, or simply to bring visiting friends to see the historic district contributes to the everyday life of the neighborhood. Second, some contribute financially to the formal organizations that provide services to the neighborhood (summer camps, for example), while some others do volunteer work that benefits the neighborhood, such as serving as trustees for local institutions, and still others provide support in times of crisis when the community needs their help. Third, the firms for which these employees work make it possible to reunite families. Job transfer from one site to another may be sought and accepted for reasons of family reunification. This global circuit as engineered and experienced by these high-tech individuals shows how transnational formal organizations affect and feed the circuit of transglobal diasporic urbanism through their contributions to neighborhood life. As a matter of fact, these neighborhoods of globalization do not evolve exclusively on the basis of what people do on their own. Their dynamic is also influenced not just by formal Jewish institutions, but by the social structure of the state where they are incorporated and by the variable relations the state maintains with Israel. In this context, global interactions and local undertakings may lead such formal institutions to seek the support of organizations in the enclave, to develop or finance institutions in the enclave, or at times to side with a local organization against the desiderata of another. Indeed, as we are now in a position to appreciate, these global neighborhoods have been shaped by the flows of five different currents. Global events such as the independence of Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria have caused the migration of Jews to Europe and the resettlement of some in these neighborhoods, while the Shoah forced many Jews to seek asylum in neighborhoods in other countries. These global events ended up having their own repercussions and unintended consequences for these neighborhoods. State policies such as zoning laws, resettlement practices, and immigration laws put constraints on what neighborhoods can do. These practices force communities to adjust their strategies of development within the limits of these constraints. In other words, neighborhoods are not free to do as they please. Formal organizations located outside the enclave regulate parts of the behaviors of the residents in a number of ways. They develop rules and control the administration of some local institutions; they

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distribute services and financial aid to the local neighborhood; they administer the Jewish school system, and they interact with the state on behalf of the neighborhoods. The state of Israel also plays a role in the development of these neighborhoods because it acts as a pull of attraction for those who want to make aliyah, because it serves as a place of last refuge, and because of the level of protection it is believed capable of providing in times of crisis. Finally, the local actors who are engaged in various ways through group or individual strategies to enhance everyday life for themselves and the community also play a significant role through the transnational relations they maintain with other diasporic sites and through the vision they have for the prosperity of the neighborhood. Although these local players are central to the everyday life of the process because of the decisions they make affecting the direction of the neighborhoods, they are not the sole actors on the scene. This chapter shows that in analyzing the geographical space of transglobal diasporic urbanism, one must remember that each node is embedded in a system of other nodes in the same metropolis and beyond, that its interaction with the global circuit is influenced by this complex multilocal reality, and that its globalibity must be seen in the context of these intertwined interactions. In consequence, the focus on neighborhoods in the study of transglobal diasporic urbanism can only be perspectival because they are the sites through which we attempt to understand the behavior of global circuits. Such a focus, despite its obvious limitations, tells us much about various facets of the globalization of neighborhoods, how the activities of the larger diasporic group in the city enhance or impede that globalization, and how neighborhoods position or reposition themselves to account for these opportunities and constraints. Neighborhoods of globalization are sites of the “space of place” where the global meets the local and in the process contributes to the shaping of a syncretistic identity.

Conclusion

Global Neighborhoods in the Global Metropolis

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he transformation of the local neighborhood in the metropolis into a global neighborhood as a node in a network of global sites has forced us to reposition our object of study. In this new light, the European neighborhood is now seen as located in a global circuit out of which the logic of its transnational integration emerges. The articulation of the neighborhood with the societal system of the hostland, its linkage to the ancestral homeland, and its relations to the transglobal networks of which it is a node have now become the mechanisms that need to be analyzed. The relations of the European Jewish neighborhood with the societal system of the hostland have had their ups and downs. The post-Holocaust locations of these sites are the outcome of the preHolocaust social formations of the inhabited spaces. The Holocaust decimated some of the Jewish population of these neighborhoods and impaired their social organization, but was unable to totally destroy the environment that had been built. The Berlin Jewish ghetto was obviously the neighborhood that suffered the most from the ravages of World War II and the Third Reich. Relations between the neighborhood and the city have depended on the city’s agenda and the agenda of the residential population in terms of what they want for their communities. Voting for a certain mayoral or presidential candidate has been a tacit way of advancing their communities’ specific causes. In Paris, the goal of the residents has been to preserve a medievalesque village life, while the city has sought to renovate the streets to allow greater penetration of the market forces that accelerate modernization. The physical upgrading or upscaling of the neighborhood to harmonize it with the surrounding urban space is part of the Parisian city hall’s vision. The official policy of the city is not to encourage ethnic differences, but rather to accelerate community integration and assimilation. Conversely, the authorities in Berlin 217

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have gone out of their way to protect Jewish buildings and institutions. They also make the extra effort of inviting Jews displaced after the war back to live in the city and perhaps even the neighborhood, if they can afford it. The reghettoization of Jews in the same pre–World War II site is not being encouraged, but is also not being discouraged, either. The government of London has a laissez-faire attitude toward Jewish enclaves because it sees diversity, or the maintenance of ethnic neighborhoods, as contributing to the strength of the urban system, not as a divisive force, as the French believe. The Jewish neighborhoods maintain their relations with Israel for different reasons. In Paris, the neighborhood maintains these relations to strengthen and preserve the security of the state of Israel. French migration and visits to Israel are primarily done for that reason, but also for familial or religious purposes. In Berlin, the situation is different, and relations with Israel are maintained mainly for the protection of German Jews. The belief there is that a strong Israel will be a deterrent to statesponsored or state-encouraged anti-Semitism. In London, the economic and religious benefits of the relationship are more pronounced, as well as the pro-Israel public stance of the residents. In general, based on the content of the interviews, one might justifiably reach the conclusion that the French relations are altruistic as a matter of principle, Berlin’s appear to be about the self-preservation of the community, while in London they are for the mutual benefit of both the homeland and the neighborhood. The predominance of one factor as the primary reason for the maintenance of a neighborhood’s relationship with Israel does not alter or diminish the presence or existence of other factors, however. When we look at the relationship between the putative homeland, Israel, and the Jewish neighborhood, there is a hierarchy of importance that is built in and shaped by the official relations the homeland maintains with the government of the hostland. The relationship of a specific neighborhood with other disaporic neighborhoods is based upon familial linkages (individual family members who live in other countries and interact), religious affiliation (the headquarters of a synagogue or a religious or cultural institution may be in another country and members visit each other), cultural associations (a formal association has its headquarters in one country and branches in another), business ties (shop owners purchase goods in other countries to sell in local businesses or real estate agencies that have clients and subsidiaries in several diasporic sites and maintain relations with each other as a way to better serve overseas customers), and grassroots ties (NGO activities undertaken by informal groups with overseas associates).


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These are two-way relations and can be initiated by any node—for example, either the homeland or another diasporic site. These nodes share information on security matters to prevent attacks and save lives. On some occasions, the homeland helps finance institutions in certain neighborhoods to ensure their transnational integration and status as its overseas extensions. In these relations, the homeland is imposing a certain hierarchical order of importance in the transnational network of sites. Being part of a network of sites means that there is self-regulated order that the network maintains to ensure equilibrium. In this case, Israel serves as the focus or primary site of coordination and governance of the network. This is not a result of a deliberate attempt by the homeland authorities to control the network, but because of the symbol of ancestral land that Israel represents (religiously, nationally) and because every attack on the security of Israel reverberates negatively throughout the diasporic sites. Similarly, an attack on any diasporic site reverberates throughout the network and momentarily causes a hierarchization within the network of sites. For example, when the Goldenberg Restaurant in the Parisian Jewish quarter was bombed, its status was upgraded, causing it to become the focus of attention from the network. Jews in the homeland and other diasporic sites were constantly seeking information about the incident and waiting for news about the fate of their loved ones. Such crises are moments when the transglobal order of the network can truly be seen in action. Competition between Jewish communities is another form of relation that regulates the nodes in the network. This competition can be national or transnational. It is national when it is between neighborhoods in the same country, for example, the rivalry between neighborhoods in Frankfurt and Berlin in Germany. It is transnational or transglobal when competition reaches across national borders, as during the prewar years when Berlin was considered the intellectual center of Jewish life and was in constant competition with Paris, Amsterdam (the “Jerusalem of the West”), Warsaw in Poland, and Vilna in Lithuania (now Vilnius) (the “Jerusalem of the East”).1 The links between these nodes can help explain the direction of individual migration in some cases: for marriage purposes or employment opportunities. Earlier, state persecution caused some residents of one neighborhood to move to other diasporic sites for security purposes. In this context, these global neighborhoods became communities of refuge where persecuted Jewish individuals could find asylum. The data collected on the Jewish neighborhoods are limited in what they can tell us. They shed light on the neighborhood’s relations

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with city hall and the extraterritorial network of sites of which it is a part. However, the data are constrained in terms of what they can tell us about the intranational networks of sites, how national networks influence the shape of the global circuit, and the role of secular Jews, either those who no longer practice Judaism and do not publicly identify themselves as Jews or practitioners of the faith who do not live in a Jewish neighborhood. Further research is needed for a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that sustain transglobal diasporic urbanisms. This study’s intent was to lay the foundation, develop the ground rules, and identify the landscape for the investigation of this new form of urbanism. The interviews point out the special relationship between the Jewish neighborhood in both Stamford Hill and Golders Green with the Jewish community in Manchester, England. These ties, as explained by informants, are the result of the secondary migration of Jews who had previously lived in these London communities and of similar religious practices because Hasidic Jews tend to engage in relations with sister Hasidic communities. The salient feature that helps maintain the neighborhood is the ability of residents to own housing stocks, so that the ethnic community can impose its cultural life and also prevent group dispersion. The control over housing centers on who buys in the neighborhood, what kinds of tenants sellers prioritize, and a double price strategy—a lower price for members of the community’s dominant ethnic or religious group and higher prices for others, as happens in Stamford Hill. The ability to develop Jewish institutions (schools, synagogues, newspapers) for the cultural life of the group is also important for the Jewish neighborhood. These institutions socialize newcomers into the culture of the group and are mechanisms of social and cultural reproduction. Their existence helps remap the landscape of the Jewish neighborhood by becoming central points of reference. Another phenomenon that reshapes the landscape of the Jewish enclave is a business district that caters to the needs of the local community with businesses that are closed on Saturdays but open on Sundays, the opposite of what is found in mainstream European society. This provides a mixed business environment because Jewish stores attract many Gentile customers on Sundays, and Gentile stores entice some less strict Jewish customers on Saturdays. These stores play a stabilizing role in the neighborhood through the signs they display in the native language of the neighborhood population and the movement of customers they generate.


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One of the central features that feeds the transnational flow between neighborhoods as nodes in a larger network is the ethnic tourism they encourage. Jewish tourists feed the coffers of Jewish businesses by using their facilities and purchasing their goods when visiting the Jewish neighborhood. This has generated the rise of culture entrepreneurs and transnational business practices.2 Culture entrepreneurs develop new cultural activities to attract large numbers of tourists, while transnational businesses facilitate movement and take advantage of it as well. An example of this practice can be seen with the tour guides and travel agencies that offer specifically Jewish tourist packages. Even city hall has gotten involved in this process by renovating ethnic sites for the enjoyment of visitors and in the interest of bringing in more tourists.

The Transnational Circulation of Goods, Bodies, Information, and Images The globalization process unveils the dynamic of the Jewish system of global neighborhoods. They are transnational sites for the circulation of bodies, information, images, and goods. They are formed and function on the basis of interenclave migration, with Jews from one neighborhood taking up residence in another enclave for a variety of reasons (persecution, for example, during the Holocaust). Jews also purchase merchandise from one or more enclaves and sell them in their neighborhood (the Jewish business sector), exchange information through the printing press and online (Jewish newspapers and newsletters, and Jewish Web sites, forums, land-based line or cellular phones, and chat rooms), and share images such as family photos through the Internet (e-mail attachments, Jewish Web sites). When an enclave is dissolved, through migration, its inhabitants feed other enclaves in the network. Routinely, this interenclave Jewish urban system is sustained through both migration and visitation. Those who migrate seek employment, education (e.g., in yeshivas), or Jewish senior citizen facilities. Interenclave visitation includes routine visits to spend time with family or friends in another enclave, diasporic tourism to visit Jewish sites such as cemeteries and synagogues, the assignment and circulation of rabbis to take care of synagogues, and the desire to meet potential partners for marriage. It also occurs through cultural, political, and religious institutions, including nongovernmental organizations that maintain headquarters in one enclave while serving the needs of other Jewish enclaves.

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A transnational enclave maintains its coherence as a local node in a global network of nodes through its protectionist market system (kosher stores), its religious singularity (Judaism), and its distinct calendar system (lunar-solar). This protectionist market is self-imposed because observant Jews must buy Jewish goods, especially kosher products necessary during the celebration of specific holy days. Only rabbis have the power to certify a product as kosher, and only Jews have the incentive to purchase kosher products because of their religious observances. Therefore, the market is protected not by the state, but by religion. This provides a cultural infrastructure for the circulation of bodies and goods. Since the synagogue is the center of religious Jewish life, it is a major factor in the reproduction of the community as an enclave. It does so by bringing the community together for weekly Sabbath services and cyclical holy days, thereby reinforcing the organic links that maintain the cohesion of the community; socializing the youngsters in the religious traditions of the community; serving as a bridge between the local neighborhood, other enclaves, and the motherland; welcoming Jewish outsiders who occasionally attend services; and organizing fundraising events to help other enclaves in need, including the state of Israel. The lunar-solar calendar system that religious Jews follow gives a different beat to the weekly and yearly rhythm of the enclave. This calendar system, together with the religious faith it sustains, has been a major variable that protects the enclave from being culturally assimilated to the dominant mainstream temporal and religious systems. At the same time, Jewish temporality is key to understanding the circulation of bodies and goods in the enclave. Transnational interenclave visits occur most intensely during the periods of Jewish holy days, rather than mainstream holidays. Likewise the Jewish enclave economy peaks during Jewish holy days and festivals because these are periods when the demand for Jewish goods is highest. Therefore, the cycle of the enclave economy does not coincide with the cycle of the mainstream economy. How the cycles of ethnic economies interface with and impact the mainstream economic cycle is an unresolved question that must be investigated so as to better understand the behavior of the national economic system.

Transglobal Diasporic Urbanism The interviews in this book provide a way to begin operationalizing the concept of transglobal urbanism in its diasporic variant. Urbanism


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has always been seen as a phenomenon that is formed by the national landscape, shaped by national policies that characterize urban life in a particular setting, if not a particular period. However, it is an illusion to view diasporic neighborhoods through this local or national lens since they are also obviously connected to other sites, as shown in this analysis. Transglobal urbanism is a result of the ongoing relations that a local neighborhood maintains with overseas sites to the extent that these sites become essential to the shaping of everyday neighborhood life. In other words, these relations are integrated into the social fabric of the community, they influence activities there, and they are intrinsic mechanisms of its social reproduction. Even the emotions of community members are stretched out transnationally since disastrous events in any overseas node of the network may be locally experienced. Transglobal urbanism expresses urban continuity beyond locality and nationality to include globality. It is achieved through mobility, relationality, and connectivity with people, institutions, and goods, which serve as agents of transformation and global flows. These agents link territories to each other and are constitutive of the flows that sustain the infrastructure of transglobal urbanism. People are engaged in overseas relationships for all kinds of reasons, including familial, religious, business, humanitarian, and social reasons. These relationships can consolidate extraterritorial ties, influence lives at a distance, and even sustain households in need. They are maintained not only through regular mail, telephone calls, and e-mails, but also by periodic visits and ethnic tourism. Individuals in various locations depend on these relationships for support, relationships that are integrated into their expression of urban life. Institutions are likewise involved in such transnational relations, either sporadically or as an intrinsic mechanism of operation. On a routine basis, they communicate with branches located in other countries, resolve problems that fall within their sphere of activities, work with overseas clients, and maintain ongoing activities that they have undertaken elsewhere. Ethnic institutions seldom function exclusively on the basis of local practices, and sooner or later they find themselves entangled with the task of resolving transnational issues. Therefore, for these institutions, globality has become a tangible feature of their local expression. Jewish institutions seamlessly operate in various diasporic sites, and some even consider the entire diaspora as their landscape of operation. They develop a sense of belonging and of home in a transglobal fashion. The diasporic community clearly appears in these transactions

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as a domain that does not fit inside the terms “host” or “homeland” because it has its own geography, form of governance, and distinct institutional practices. In addition to the circulation of people and institutional practices, one must also recognize the importance of the mobility of goods or objects from one global neighborhood to another as a sustaining element of the infrastructure of transglobal urbanism. Some objects circulate for the decoration of homes and public places of worship; some circulate for medicinal purposes, such as herbs from Israel; and food items circulate for personal culinary use. While relationships are important in the understanding of the connections of one neighborhood to another, one must also pay attention to the material and social infrastructure that generates and sustains transglobal urbanism and provides many clues as to the architecture of the process. In doing so, one can begin to understand the centrality of the diasporic business sector as having its own internal logic—that is, as part of a larger transnational business sector that encompasses various sites. It constitutes one of the mechanisms that reshape the landscape of the neighborhood by reproducing homeland practices inside the neighborhood and providing the ingredients to consolidate cultural practices. Transglobal diasporic urbanism occurs in a cross-border landscape composed of distinct sites that sustain one another, depend on one another in times of crisis, and collectively remain loyal to the homeland, to the hostland, and to the diaspora in general. Each site derives the logic of its existence out of this web of extraterritorial relations and in interaction with the hostland where it is spatially located. The logic of the network influences a site’s integration, which in turn reverberates in the network’s content, direction, intensity of relations, and purposeful behaviors.

The Logic of Global Neighborhoods The data on Jewish neighborhoods have revealed much information on the functioning of global neighborhoods, information that can be useful in understanding other such entities. In my view, the Jewish model is prototypical because it has a full-blown social structure due to its long history, the dispersion of its population, and the level of cohesion and social organization it has attained. It also stands in antithesis with secular members of the group who do not live in Jewish neighborhoods or do not even identify themselves as Jews.


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With the incremental multiculturalism of cities, transglobal urbanism has become a major feature in the life of all metropolitan centers because it affects the logic of people’s life stories, modes of interaction with the rest of the urban environment, use of urban space, and their social integration in the urban landscape. Global neighborhoods establish new economic circuits that also influence the cadence of the mainstream rhythm by the agglomeration economies they feed, the ethnic clientele they attract, and the calendar that some of them use to provide a different tempo for the work week. Diasporic enclaves have produced a major urban revolution that has previously not been taken very seriously, as most scholars focus all their research on the study of international migration or the movements of people instead of the consequences of these phenomena.3 As a result of the urban revolution diasporas have generated, the geography of the urban landscape has profoundly changed, and so has the modus operandi of metropolises. This urban revolution from below requires us to attempt to understand what this new spatial reconfiguration means for the welfare of urban residents, who have all been affected by the new order of things. Digitized transglobal urbanism is the newest form of city life experienced by residents of global neighborhoods. It is not identical with the larger process of globalization experienced by the mainstream urban system because of its singular parameters of practice, the unique transborder landscape that it covers, the effects on residents and flows it generates, the boundaries it establishes, the cultural life it promotes, and the logic of transnational practice it incubates. Global neighborhoods are fundamentally multicultural communities because they share local space with other groups and members of the mainstream community. In this sense, they are heterogeneous and not homogeneous social formations. The interactions they maintain at the local level are part of their transnational relations. Also, because people are constantly moving in, while others move out, global neighborhoods are dynamic systems that are always in the process of making and remaking. The social ecosystem they form is symptomatic of and influenced by the global flows that shape the contents of their local interaction.

The Order of Transglobal Urbanism Transglobal urbanism produces its own order as it deploys itself through connections with various sites that sustain its existence and reinforce

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the mode of functioning of each site in the network. The following mechanisms explain its mode of operation. The variable geometry of the architecture of transglobal urbanism points to the ways in which it is constituted. Sites may disappear and new ones may appear. When an enclave disappears, members naturally migrate to another enclave. When a new enclave appears, it is incorporated in the global network of sites. The disappearance and the creation of sites perturb the geometry and cadence of the network. The disappearance does so because the site no longer feeds the needs of other sites as a market for goods manufactured in other enclaves, as a potential place of refuge in case of persecution, and as a place of memory that feeds the emotional needs of other sites. In contrast, the creation of a new site, as in the case of Sosua in the Dominican Republic during World War II, leads to incorporation in the network and perturbs it because of the financial aid that is needed to help with resettlement and the new role the site plays in the network. Transglobal urbanism links different sites, with different histories and different needs, that make different contributions to the order of the network. Transglobal urban order is constituted out of the living experiences of each site. This helps explain its malleability and variability. While financial support is a collective form of solidarity that various sites use to help other sites and therefore to make the network viable and sustainable, it is by no means the only mechanism used. Sites are also engaged in lobbying the government of their hostland on behalf of other sites; pressuring foreign governments on behalf of other sites; developing mechanisms to facilitate and welcome members of other sites who are persecuted; and using international newspapers, radio programs, and television broadcast to sensitize the world about the plight of a site that is struggling to survive in the midst of hostilities. To understand the urban form of this global system, it is important to consider how the evolution of sites has been affected by diasporans in other sites in the network. The Jewish quarter in Paris is a good example of how this is done. The recent controversy between the Merchants’ Association of the Fourth Arrondissement and city hall of Paris was a negotiation that involved Jews in other sites. Individual Jews who were living in other sites wrote to city hall to express either their agreement or disagreement with its renewal policy, contacted the leaders of the neighborhood to express their views on the issue, and participated in cyberspatial discussions to voice an opinion one way or the other. A local issue concerning the modernization of the


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neighborhood became a global issue inviting the participation of Jews in various parts of the diaspora. The neighborhood thus belongs to the network of Jewish sites, not simply its residents. This example clearly illustrates the transglobal logic of the transglobal urban system of the Jewish diaspora. The metropolis is made of and traversed by diverse transnational flows that are constitutive of transglobal urbanism: flows generated by both the formal urban system and diasporic neighborhoods. These forms of urbanism are not identical and occupy different transnational spaces. However, they crisscross and complement each other. Since they each have their own rationale, they will continue to feed each other and struggle to maintain their boundaries. In this light, transglobal diasporic urbanism is the modular expression of the attachment of the residents to both the network and the local place.


Notes Chapter 1 1. For definitions of “ethnopolis” and “chronopolis,” see Michel S. Laguerre, The Global Ethnopolis: Chinatown, Japantown and Manilatown in American Society. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000; and Michel S. Laguerre, Urban Multiculturalism and Globalization in New York City. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 2. Judith Allen, Europe of the Neighbourhoods: Class, Citizenship and Welfare Regimes. In Social Exclusion in European Cities: Processes, Experiences and Responses, edited by Ali Madanipour, Goran Cars and Judith Allen. London: Routledge, 2003, pp. 24–51. See also R. Batley and G. Stoker (eds.), Local Government in Europe: Trends and Development. London: Macmillan, 1991. C. Hadjimichalis and D. Sadler (eds.), Europe at the Margins: New Mosaics of Inequality. Chichester: Wiley, 1995. 3. Robert Anchel, The Early History of the Jewish Quarters in Paris. Jewish Social Studies, 2 (January), 1940; Eike Geisel, Im Scheunenviertel: Bilder, Texte und Dokumente. Berlin: Severin und Siedler, 1981; Matthew Reisz, Europe’s Jewish Quarters. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991; Roberta Curiel and Bernard D. Cooperman, The Ghetto of Venice. London: Tauris Parke, 1990. 4. There is no consensus on the origin and meaning of the word “ghetto.” In a lecture delivered in May 1814 at the Congrès des Sociétés d’Histoire de Paris, Charles Fegdal wrote that “Il ghetto était, jadis, à Rome, le quartier de la ville en divorce avec les autres quartiers—ghet, en hébreu, signifie divorce, duquel les Italiens ont formé ghetto—les juifs étaient tenus d’y habiter et, à la nuit tombante, on les y enfermait.” Charles Fegdal, Le Ghetto Parisien Contemporain. La Cité: Bulletin de la Société Historique et Archéologique du IVè Arrondissement, 14: 221–236, 1915. 5. Tim Cole, Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto. New York: Routledge, 2003. 6. Roberta Curiel and Bernard D. Cooperman, The Ghetto of Venice. London: Tauris Parke, 1990; Matthew Reisz, Europe’s Jewish Quarters. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991; Adolf Kober, Jewish Communities in Germany from the Age of Enlightenment to their Destruction by the Nazis. Jewish Social Studies, 9: 195–238, 1947. 229

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7. P. Friedman, The Jewish Ghetto of the Nazi Era. Jewish Social Studies, 16: 189, 1954; Tim Cole, Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto. New York: Routledge, 2003. 8. For a substantive analysis of the diversity of neighborhood types, see Mark Abrahamson, Urban Enclaves: Identity and Place in America. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. 9. B. J. Godfrey, Neighborhoods in Transition: The Making of San Francisco’s Ethnic and Non-Conformist Communities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. 10. D. S. Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. 11. J. Brody, La Rue des Rosiers: Une Manière d’être Juif. Paris: Autrement, 1995. Jeanne Brody, Le Quartier de la Rue des Rosiers ou l’Histoire d’un Cheminement. In Chemins de la Ville. Paris: CTHS, 1987. Jeanne Brody, La Rue des Rosiers, un Quartier-Mémoire. Archives Juives: Revue d’Histoire des Juifs de France, 31(1): 26–38, 1998. Juliette Faure, Le Marais: Organisation du Cadre Bati. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997. Sommerfeld, Adolf, Das Ghetto von Berlin. Aus dem Scheunenviertel. Kriminal-roman. Reprint. Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben, 1992. Wilhelm, Kurt, The Jewish Community in the Post-Emancipation Period. LBIYB (2): 47–75, 1957. (Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute). Michael Brenner, After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Otto R. Romberg and Susanne Urban-Fahr (eds.), Jews in Germany after 1945. Frankfurt: Tribune-Verlag, 2000. Robin Ostow, Jews in Contemporary East Germany: The Children of Moses in the Land of Marx. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Sonia L. Lipman and V. D. Lipman, Jewish Life in Britain 1962–1977. New York: K. G. Saur, 1981. Julius Gould and Shaul Esh (eds.), Jewish Life in Modern Britain. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964. Ruth Ellen Gruber, Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Walter Laqueur, Generation Exodus: The Fate of Young Jewish Refugees from Nazi Germany. Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 2001. Sander Gilman and Karen Remmler, Reemerging Jewish Culture in Berlin. New York: New York University Press, 1994. 12. For a typology of global neighborhoods in American society, see Michel S. Laguerre, Diasporic Globalization: Reframing the Global/Local Question. Research in Urban Sociology, 8: 15–40, 2007. 13. Mark Abrahamson, Urban Enclaves: Identity and Place in America. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. 14. Ibid. 15. Nancy Green, Quartier et Travail: Les Immigrés Juifs dans le Marais et Derrière les Machines à Coudre, 1900–1939. In Villes Ouvrières 1900–1950, edited by Susanna Magri and Christian Topalov. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989, pp. 83–92, and Patrick Simon and Claude Tapia, Le Belleville des Juifs Tunisiens. Paris: Editions Autrement, 1998. 16. Mark Abrahamson, Urban Enclaves: Identity and Place in America. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. 17. Ibid.

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18. David Bell and Mark Jayne, City of Quarters: Urban Villages in the Contemporary City. London: Ashgate, 2004. 19. Judith Allen, Goran Cars, and Ali Madanipour, Introduction. In Social Exclusion in European Cities, edited by Ali Madanipour, Goran Cars, and Judith Allen. London: Routledge, 2003, pp. 7–19; see also L. Mumford, The Neighborhood Unit. Town Planning Review, 24: 256–270, 1954. 20. Robert Latham and Saskia Sassen, Digital Formations: Constructing an Object of Study. In Robert Latham and Saskia Sassen, Digital Formations: IT and New Architectures in the Global Realm. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, pp. 24–25. 21. Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy. London: Pine Forge Press, 2000, p. 54. 22. Ibid., p. 56. 23. Michael Peter Smith, Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization. Malden: Blackwell, 2001, p. 5. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid., pp. 167 and 174.

Chapter 2 1. Esther Benbassa, The Jews of France: A History from Antiquity to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999; Robert Anchel, The Early History of the Jewish Quarters in Paris. Jewish Social Studies, 2 (1): 45–60, 1940; Claude Tapia, Les Juifs Sépharades en France (1965–1985). Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1986; Roger Berg, Histoire des Juifs à Paris. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1997; Patrick Simon and Claude Tapia, Le Belleville des Juifs Tunisiens. Paris: Editions Autrement, 1998; Nancy Green, Quartier et Travail: Les Immigrés Juifs dans le Marais et Derrière les Machines à Coudre 1900–1939. In Villes Ouvrières 1900–1950, edited by Susanna Magri and Christian Topalov. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989, pp. 83–92; Jeanne Brody, Le Quartier de la Rue des Rosiers ou L’Histoire d’un Cheminement. In Chemins de la Ville: Enquêtes Ethnologiques, edited by Jacques Gutwirth and Colette Pétonnet. Paris: Editions du CTHS, 1987, pp. 85–102; Jeanne Brody, La Rue des Rosiers, Un Quartier-Mémoire. Archives Juives, 31(1): 26–38, 1998; Jeanne Brody, Rue des Rosiers: Une Manière d’Etre Juif. Paris: Editions Autrement, 1995. 2. Maurice Freedman, A Minority in Britain. London: Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., 1955. 3. Serge Klarsfeld, La Shoah en France. Le mémorial des enfants Juifs Déportés de France. Vol. 4. Paris: Fayard, 2001, pp. 127–385. 4. Serge Klarsfeld, La Shoah en France: Vichy-Auschwitz. La Solution Finale de la Question Juive en France. Paris: Fayard, 2001. 5. Ibid. 6. R. Sarraute and P. Tager, Introduction, pp. 1–12. In Les Juifs Sous l’Occupation. Recueil de Textes Français et Allemands 1940–44. Paris: Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, 1945.

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7. Verhey de Philippe, Spoliation de Biens Juifs sous L’Occupation: L’Aryanisation Economique. Regards sur l’Actualité, no. 232, Juin 1997, pp. 41–54. Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton, Vichy et les juifs. Paris: Calman-Levy, 1981. Dominique Rémy, Les Lois de Vichy. Paris: Romillat, 1992. For a very detailed analysis of this issue, see Helen B. Junz, Where Did All the Money Go? Pre-Nazi Era Wealth of the European Jewry. Great Britain: JAMS, 2001. 8. Paul E. Hyman, The Jews of Modern France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 9. Frederic Karpyta, Yiddish Story. Paris Le Magazine, no. 13, November 1986, pp. 63–69. 10. Serge Klarsfeld, La Shoah en France: Vichy-Auschwitz. La Solution Finale et la Question Juive en France. Paris: Fayard, 2001. 11. Ibid., p. 15. 12. Ibid. 13. Frederic Karpyta, Yiddish Story. Paris Le Magazine, no. 13, November 1986, pp. 63–69. 14. Collectif, Le Droit Anti-Sémite de Vichy. Paris: Seuil, 1996; Joseph Billig, Le Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives (1941–44). 3 volumes. Paris: Editions du Centre, 1955. 15. Jacques Bielinky, Journal 1940–1942. Un Journaliste Juif à Paris sous l’Occupation. Paris: Cerf, 1992; Albert Grunberg, Journal d’Un Coiffeur Juif à Paris sous l’Occupation. Paris: Editions de l’Atelier-Editions Ouvrières, 2001. 16. Les Juifs sous l’Occupation. Recueil de Textes Français et Allemands 1940–44. Paris: Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, 1945, p. 18. 17. Ibid., p. 155. 18. Ibid., p. 42. 19. “Des le mois de Juin, la resistance juive lance l’appel suivant: Mamans, n’attendez pas la venue des bourreaux, prenez toutes les mesures pour mettre à l’abri vos enfants, cachez-les chez des braves français qui sont prêts à vous aider . . . 16 février 1943: acte héroique des femmes juives du “groupe de sauvetage” qui enlèvent 60 enfants du Centre de l’IGIF de la rue Lamarck, la veille de leur déportation.” Commission Centrale de l’Enfance, Dixième Anniversaire. Aide a l’Enfance, no. 12, Janvier 1953, p. 1. 20. Roger Berg, Histoire des Juifs à Paris. Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1997. 21. Paul E. Hyman, The Jews of Modern France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 22. Henri Minczeles, Le Marais est-il Encore un Quartier Juif? Actualité Juive Hebdo, no. 175, Mercredi 27 Septembre 1989; Jean Louis Perrier, Rue de Rosiers. Le Monde, Samedi 30 Octobre 1993, p. 29; Guenola Groud, Musique et Patrimoine: Synagogue de la Rue des Tournelles. Paris: Direction des Affaires Culturelles de la Ville de Paris, 1995. 23. “De 1876 à 1958, la synagogue a été le lieu de prières de fidèles venus de l’Est de la France ou de l’Europe Centrale et a suivi le rite ashkenaze. En 1958, le Consistoirre de Paris l’ayant affecté aux rapatriés d’Algérie, le rituel fut modifié pour suivre alors la tradition séfarade; les offices sont d’ailleurs

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actuellement célébrés selon le rite séfarade constantinois.” Guenola Groud, Musique et Patrimoine: Synagogue de la Rue des Tournelles. Paris: Direction des Affaires Culturelles de la Ville de Paris, 1995. 24. Paul E. Hyman, The Jews of Modern France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Roger Berg, Histoire des Juifs de Paris. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1997. Esther Benbassa, The Jews of France: A History from Antiquity to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. 25. Dominique Zardi, La Tuerie de la Rue des Rosiers. Paris: Dualpha, 2002. 26. Yves Cuau and Jacques Derogy, De Copernic à la Rue des Rosiers. L’Express du 13 au 19 Août 1982, pp. 40–41, 43–46. 27. New York Times, August 15, 1982, Concerns Over Terrorism Increase After a Series of Attacks in Paris; Financial Times (London), August 10, 1982, Attack in Jewish Quarter of Paris; New York Times, August 10, 1982, 6 Killed in Attack on Jews in Paris; New York Times, August 12, 1982, French Regretful at Begin Remarks; New York Times, August 19, 1092, France Bans a Leftist Group Tied to Anti-Semitic Attacks. 28. Flora Lewis, Foreign Affairs: Words and Terror. New York Times, August 13, 1982. 29. Steven Rattner, Mitterand Faults Middle East for Terrorist Acts in France. New York Times, August 18, 1982. 30. Zeev Schiff, Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Edgar O’Balance, The Palestinian Intifada. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Laetitia Bucaille, Generations Intifada. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Danny Dor, Intifada Hits the Headlines: How the Israeli Press Misreported the Outbreak of the Second Palestinian Uprising. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. 31. “Etabli en 1923 . . . le restaurant Goldenberg [est] au Coeur du quartier juif de Paris . . . On y vient de partout. Après tout l’enseigne enguirlandée d’ampoules multicolores, ne proclame-t-elle pas: ‘Specialités mondiales.’ ” L’Institution Goldenberg by A[ndré] P[autard]. L’Express, 13 au 19 Août 1982, p. 45.

Chapter 3 1. For a balanced history of Scheunenviertel in the period between the two world wars, see David Clay Large, Berlin. New York: Basic Books, 2000, pp. 182–184. 2. On urban development in Berlin, see J. S. Dangschat, Berlin and the German Systems of Cities. Urban Studies, 30 (6): 1025–1051, 1993; D. Frick, City Development and Planning in the Berlin Conurbation: Current Situation and Future Perspectives. Town Planning Review, 62 (1): 37–49, 1991; Cindy T. Cooper and Christopher Mele, Urban Redevelopment as Contingent Process: Implicating Everyday Practices in Berlin’s Renewal. City and Community, 1(3): 291–311, 2002; E. Strom, Building the New Berlin: The Politics of Urban Development

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in Germany’s Capital City. New York: Lexington Books, 2001; J. McCarthy, Housing Regeneration in Former East Berlin. European Planning Studies, 5(6): 793–802, 1997; P. Marcuse, Reflections on Berlin: The Meaning of Construction and the Construction of Meaning. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 22(2): 331–338, 1998; and B. Ladd, Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. 3. On post-Holocaust Jewish life in East Germany, see Lothar Mertens, Davidstern unter Hammer und Zirkel. Die Judischen Gemeinden in der SBZ/DDR und ihre Behandlung durch Partei und Staat 1945–1990. Hildesheim: Olms, 1997; Robin Ostow, Jews in Contemporary East Germany: The Children of Moses in the Land of Marx. London, 1989; Ulrike Offenberg, Seid vorsichtig gegen die Machthaber. Die Judischen Gemeinden in der SBZ und der DDR 1945–1990. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1998; see also Werner Bergmann, Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia in the East German Lander. German Politics, 3 (2): 265–276, 1994; Lynn Rapaport, The Cultural and Material Reconstruction of the Jewish Communities in the Federal Republic of Germany. Jewish Social Studies, 49(2): 137–154, 1987; Jay Howard Geller, Representing Jewry in East Germany, 1945–1953: Between Advocacy and Accommodation. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook (47) 195–214, 2002. 4. Michael Brenner, Jewish Life and Jewish Culture in Berlin After 1945. In Jewish Life in Germany Today, edited by Uri R. Kaufmann. Bonn: Inter Nationes, 1994, pp.15–26. 5. Cristoph Stroschein, Metropole Berlin. Berlin: Metropolis Verlag, 1994, p. 22. 6. Andreas Nachama, From 1945 to the Present. In Andreas Nachama, Julius H. Schoeps, and Hermann Simon, eds., Jews in Berlin, pp. 221–244. Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 2002, p. 228. 7. Andreas Nachama remarks that “as a result of brutal pogroms in Poland in the fall of 1945, a large number of Jewish refugees from Poland arrived in Germany.” He also noted that, “on August 29, 1947 ‘Der Weg’ reported the arrival in Berlin of 295 Jews from Shanghai, where they found refuge after the Nazi pogrom of November 9, 1938 (also called Kristallnacht). This was the first large group of former Berliners to return to their old home.” Andreas Nachama, From 1945 to the Present. In Andreas Nachama, Julius H. Schoeps, and Hermann Simon, eds., Jews in Berlin, pp. 221–244. Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 2002, pp. 225, 228. 8. Norbert Muhlen, The Survivors: A Report on the Jews in Germany Today. New York: Crowell, 1962, p.45. 9. Robin Ostow, Becoming Strangers: Jews in Germany’s Five New Provinces. In Reemerging Jewish Culture in Germany: Life and Literature Since 1989, edited by Sander Gilman and Karen Remmler. New York: New York University Press, 1994, pp. 62–74. Peter Laufer, Exodus to Berlin: The Return of the Jews to Germany. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003. Jonathan Laurence, Reconstructing Community in Berlin. German Politics and Society, 19 (2): 22–61, 2001. 10. On post-Holocaust Jewish immigration into Germany, see Lynn Rapaport, The Cultural and Material Reconstruction of the Jewish Communities in the Federal Republic of Germany. Jewish Social Studies, 49 (2): 137–154, 1987.

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11. Jeroen Doomernik, Going West: Soviet Jewish Immigrants in Berlin Since 1990. Aldershot: Avebury, 1997. See also Madeleine Tress, Soviet Jews in the Federal Republic of Germany: The Rebuilding of a Community. The Jewish Journal of Sociology, xxxvii (1): 39–54, 1995. 12. Andres Nachama, From 1945 to the Present. In Andreas Nachama, Julius H. Schoeps, and Hermann Simon, eds., Jews in Berlin. Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 2002, p. 241. 13. On the reintegration of Jewish returnees in everyday life in Germany, see John Borneman and Jeffrey Peck (eds.), Sojourners: The Return of German Jews and the Question of Identity. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. 14. Hartmut Haubermann, Social Transformation of Urban Space in Berlin Since 1990. In Cities in Transformation—Transformations in Cities, edited by O. Kalltorp et al. Brookfield: Avebury 1997, pp. 80–97, p. 89. Strom (2001: 66) points out that “few former Jewish owners are alive to make their claims and few of their heirs live in Germany. Their property has therefore been claimed either by heirs living abroad, or by the Jewish Claims Conference. . . . Seldom do the heirs of Jewish owners actually wish to use or develop their property; rather, the goal of the Claims Conference and most Jewish heirs is to sell their holdings as quickly as possible.” 15. Harmut Haubermann, Social Transformation of Urban Space in Berlin Since 1990. In Cities in Transformation—Transformations in Cities, edited by O. Kalltorp et al. Brookfield: Avebury, 1997, p. 89. 16. Carsten Herz, Jewish Secondary School Opened in Berlin. In Jewish Life in Germany Today, edited by Uri R. Kaufmann. Bonn: Inter Nationes, 1994, pp. 103–105. See also John Rodden, Bridge Over Broken Glass? Crisscrossing History in Germany’s Sole Jewish High School.” The MidWest Quarterly, 39(1):44 (17), 1997. John Rodden, Return of the Pink Rabbit? A Visit to a Jewish School in Berlin. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 11 (4): 386, 1996. 17. For a brief factual history of the Neue Synagoge, see Hermann Simon, The New Synagogue in Berlin and Its Reconstruction as the Centrum Judaicum. In Jewish Life in Germany Today, edited by Uri R. Kaufmann. Bonn: Inter Nationes, 1994, pp. 183–190. 18. All in all, thirty-six people attended the service, among whom were a woman and five children, while the rest were adult males. Not all of the attendees were permanent members of the congregation. There were five visitors from Brisbane, Australia, three from other parts of Germany, three from Switzerland, one from England, a Gentile middle-aged woman from Berlin, and there was me, from California. Although the majority were Ashkenazim, there were four Sephardic Jews from North Africa and the Middle East who could be recognized easily by the adornment of their kippa and with whom I had an opportunity to chat during the Kiddush. 19. About half the congregation (less than fifty people were in attendance) were Russian-speaking immigrants. There was one person from Israel, one from Czechoslovakia (who was in training to become a rabbi), a local cantor, and others. The presiding rabbi had immigrated to Berlin two years earlier from the Netherlands. Since no service was being held at the Oranienburgerstrasse

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synagogue at this time, the director of the Centrum Judaicum and a few congregation members from other parts of town were also in attendance.

Chapter 4 1. For historical and sociological background material on Jewish London, see Stanley Waterman and Barry Kosmin, Mapping an Unenumerated Ethnic Population: Jews in London. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 9 (4): 484–501, 1986; Maurice Freedman, A Minority in Britain. London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1955; V. D. Lipman, A History of the Jews in Britain since 1858. London: Leicester University Press, pp. 229–245, 1990; Keith Harris (ed.), New Voices in Jewish Thought. London: Limmud Publications, 1999; Simon Dein, Millennium, Messianism and Medicine Among the Lubavitch of Stamford Hill, London. The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 38 (4): 262–272, 1992; Geoffrey Alderman, Modern British Jewry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992; Richard Bolchover, British Jewry and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983; Todd Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 1656 to 2000. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. 2. Alan Palmer, The East End. London: John Murray, 1989, pp. 137–175. 3. David Mander, Strength in the Tower: An Illustrated History of Hackney. London: Sutton Publishing, 1998; Gerry Black, Jewish London: An Illustrated History. Derby: Breedon Books, 2003; Barry A. Kosmin and Nigel Grizzard, Jews in an Inner London Borough (Hackney): A Study of the Jewish Population of the London Borough of Hackney Based upon the 1971 Census. London: Narod Press, 1975; Morris Beckman, The Hackney Crucible. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1996. 4. William J. Fishman, Jewish Radicals: From Czarist Stelt to London Ghetto. New York: Pantheon, 1974; Lloyd P. Gartner, The Jewish Immigrant in England, 1870–1914. London: Simon Publications, 1973; A. B. Levy, In Search of the East End. The Jewish Chronicle, May 14, 1948, no. 4, 125; Harold Pollins, Economic History of the Jews in England. London: Associated University Press, 1982, pp. 209–217; David Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and Political Culture, 1840–1914. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994; Keith Harris, New Voices in Jewish Thought. London: Limmud Publications, 1999. 5. Andrew Saint and Gillian Darley, The Chronicles of London. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994, p. 303. 6. David Mander, Strength in the Tower: An Illustrated History of Hackney. London: Sutton Publishing, 1998, p. 117. 7. Barry A. Kosmin and Nigel Grizzard, Jews in an Inner London Borough (Hackney): A Study of the Jewish Population of the London Borough of Hackney Based upon the 1971 Census. London: Narod Press 1975, p. 32. 8. Ibid., p. 34. 9. Gerry Black, Jewish London: An Illustrated History. Derby: Breedon Books, 2003, p. 164.

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10. Barry A. Kosmin and Nigel Grizzard, Jews in an Inner London Borough (Hackney): A Study of the Jewish Population of the London Borough of Hackney Based upon the 1971 Census. London: Narod Press 1975, p. 34. 11. Andrew Saint and Gillian Darley, The Chronicles of London. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1994, p 303. 12. Barry A. Kosmin and Nigel Grizzard, Jews in an Inner London Borough (Hackney): A Study of the Jewish Population of the London Borough of Hackney Based upon the 1971 Census. London: Narod Press 1975, p. 33. 13. The Jewish Chronicle, March 16, 1945, p. 5. 14. Ibid., July 9, 1948, p. 16. 15. Ibid., June 3, 1955, p. 18. 16. Ibid., April 25, 1969, p. 10. 17. Ibid., February 16, 1951, 18. 18. Ibid., March 25, 1955, p. 30. 19. Ibid., January 28, 1955, p. 23. 20. Ibid., January 3, 1964, p. 14. 21. Steven J. Gold, The Israeli Diaspora. London: Routledge, 2002, has recently provided ample documentation on how Israeli Jews in London maintain contact with their compatriots through their participation in associative events, religious activities, and business practices.

Chapter 5 1. H. Aldrich and A. Reiss, Continuities in the Study of Ecological Succession: Changes in the Race Composition of Neighborhoods and their Businessmen. American Journal of Sociology, 81: 846–66, 1976. R. Ward and R. Jenkins (eds.), Ethnic Communities in Business: Strategies for Economic Survival. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. M. Auvolat and R. Benattig, Les Artisans Etrangers en France. Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 4: 37–54, 1988. G. A. Barrett, T. P. Jones and D. McEvoy, Ethnic Minority Business: Theoretical Discourse in Britain and North America. Urban Studies, 33: 783–809, 1996. I. Light and S. J. Gold, Ethnic Economies. San Diego: Academic Press, 2000. 2. I. Light, Globalization and Migration Networks, in J. Rath (ed.), Immigrant Businesses: The Economic, Political, and Social Environment. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000. 3. Roger Waldinger, Howard Aldrich and Robin Ward, Opportunities, Group Characteristics, and Strategies. In Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Immigrant Business in Industrial Societies, edited by Roger Waldinger, Howard Aldrich, and Robin Ward. London: Sage, 1990, pp. 13–48. E. Ma Mung, Disposif Economique et Ressources Spatiales: Eléments d’Une Economie de Diaspora. Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 8: 175–93, 1992. Robert Kloosterman and Jan Rath (eds.), Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Venturing Abroad in the Age of Globalization. New York: Berg, 2003.

238

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4. See, for example, Steven J. Gold, The Israeli Diaspora. London: Routledge, 2002. Michel S. Laguerre, The Global Ethnopolis: Chinatown, Japantown and Manilatown in American Society. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000. Michel S. Laguerre, Diasporic Citizenship. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998. 5. See Doris Bensimon-Donath, L’Intégration des Juifs Nord-Africains en France. Paris: Mouton, 1971, p. 199.

Chapter 6 1. On the history of the hegemonic week, see E. Zerubavel, The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week. New York: Free Press, 1985. 2. Georges Gurvitch, La Multiplicité des Temps Sociaux. Paris: Centre de Documentation Universitaire, 1961. P. C. Graham and A. Graham, Community Types, Community Typologies and Community Time. Time and Society 4(2): 147–166, 1995. 3. H. Bhabha, DissemiNation: Time, Narrative and the Margins of the Modern Nation. In H. Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration. New York: Routledge, 1990; M. Hanchard, Afro-Modernity: Temporality, Politics, and the African Diaspora. Public Culture 11(1): 245–268, 1999. 4. M. J. Shapiro, National Times and Other Times: Re-Thinking Citizenship. Cultural Studies 14(1): 79–98, 2000. 5. Michel S. Laguerre, Urban Multiculturalism and Globalization in New York City: An Analysis of Diasporic Temporalities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 6. Jeanne Brody, La Rue des Rosiers: Une Manière d’Etre Juif. Paris: Autrement, 1995.

Chapter 7 1. The Jewish quarter has been the subject of several studies, including Nancy Green, Les Travailleurs Immigrés juifs à la Belle Epoque, Le Pletzl de Paris. Paris: Fayard, 1985; Sylvia Ostrowetsky, La Puissance des Disposifs Spatiaux. In Formes Architecturales, Formes Urbaines. Paris: Anthropos, 1994; Marie-Helène Poggi, Le Quartier du Marais, le Mélange et le Feuilleté. In Pour Une Sociologie de la Forme. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999; Lorenza Mondada, Un Descripteur Contesté: Le Ghetto. In Décrire la Ville. Paris: Anthropos, 2000; Jeanne Brody, Le Quartier de la Rue des Rosiers ou l’Histoire d’un Cheminement. In Les Cheminements de la Ville. Paris: Editions CTHS, 1985; and Bernadette Costa, Je me Souviens du Marais. Paris: Parigramme, 1995; Paul E. Hyman, The Jews of Modern France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 2. Elaine Sciolino, Jewish District Rallies to Save Its Soul from Renovation. New York Times, April 5, 2004; Cecilia Gabizon, Polémique sur l’Aménagement de la Rue des Rosiers. Le Figaro, 6 Avril 2004; Françoise Chirot,

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Controverse autour de la “piétonnisation” du quartier juif de Paris. Le Monde du 21 Novembre 2003; Aurelie Sarrot, Consultation Prolongée pour la Rue des Rosiers. MétroParis, 9 Février 2004; Christophe de Chenay, Les Parisiens veulent Préserver l’Originalité de leurs Quartiers. Le Monde, 28 Novembre 2003; Eric Le Mitouard, Les 10 Vérités sur la Future Rue des Rosiers. Le Parisien, 2 Décembre 2003. 3. Annick Tanter and Jean-Claude Toubon, Mixité Sociale et Politiques de Peuplement: Genèse de l’Ethnicisation des Opérations de Réhabilitation. Sociétés Contemporaines, 33–34: 59–86, 1999; Catherine Rhein, Globalization, Social Change and Minorities in Metropolitian Paris: The Emergence of New Class Patterns. Urban Studies, 35(3): 429–447, 1998; James W. White, Old Wine, Cracked Bottle? Tokyo, Paris, and the Global City Hypothesis. Urban Affairs Review, 33(4): 451–477, 1998; Edmond Preteceille, Division Sociale de l’Espace et Globalisation: Le Cas de la Métropole Parisienne. Sociétés Contemporaines, 22–23: 33–67, 1995. 4. Martine Berger, Trajectories in Living Space, Employment, and Housing Stock: The Example of the Parisian Metropolis in the 1980s and 1990s. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 20 (2): 240–254, 1996; Emmanuel Ma Mung, Territorializzazione Commerciale delle Identita: I Cinesi a Parigi. La Critica Sociologica, 117–118: 64–77, 1996; Vasoodeven Vuddamalay, Paul White, and Deborah Sporton, The Evolution of the Goutte D’Or as an Ethnic Minority District in Paris. New Community, 17 (2): 245–258, 1991. 5. Sue Collard, Politics, Culture and Urban Transformation in Jacques Chirac’s Paris 1977–1995. French Cultural Studies, 7, 1(19): 1–31, 1995; H. V. Savitch, Reorganization in Three Cities: Explaining the Disparity Between Intended Actions and Unanticipated Consequences. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 29(4): 565–595, 1994; Jean-Paul Alday, L’Aménagement de la Région de Paris entre 1930 et 1975: De la Plannification à la Politique Urbaine. Sociologie du Travail, 21(2): 167–200, 1979; Alain Cottereau, Les Débuts de Plannification Urbaine dans l’Agglomération Parisienne. Sociologie du Travail, 12 (4): 362–392, 1970. 6. James C. Fraser, Edward L. Kick, and J. Patrick Williams, Neighborhood Revitalization and the Practice of Evaluation in the United States: Developing a Margin Research Perspective. City and Community, 1 (2): 217–236, 2002. 7. Gary McDonogh, Discourses of the City: Policy and Response in Post-Transitional Barcelona. City and Society, 5 (1): 40–63, 1991. 8. Ariadne Vromen, Community-Based Activism and Change: The Cases of Sydney and Toronto. City and Community, 2 (1): 47–70, 2003. 9. Donald V. Kurtz, Regulative and Generative Planning: Provocative Themes and Future Research. City and Society, 5 (1): 3–9, 1991. A. C. Kubisch, K. Fulbright-Anderson, and J. P. Connell, Evaluation Community Initiatives: A Progress report. In K. Fulbright et al. (eds.), New Approaches to Evaluating Community Initiatives, Vol. 2: Theory, Measurement and Analysis. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, 1998. 10. Douglas Uzzell, Dissonance of Formal and Informal Planning Styles, or Can Formal Planners Do Bricolage? City and Society, 4 (2): 114–130, 1990.

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Chapter 8 1. On heritage tourism, see T. C. Chang, Simon Milne, Dale Fallon, and Corinne Pohlmann, Urban Heritage Tourism: The Global-Local Nexus. Annals of Tourism Research, 23 (2): 284–305, 1996; Jan Van der Borg, Paolo Costa, and Gotti Giuseppe, Tourism in European Heritage Cities. Annals of Tourism Research, 23 (2): 306–321, 1996; Lily M. Hoffman, Tourism and the Revitalization of Harlem. Research in Urban Sociology, 5: 207–223, 2000; Pierre Van Den Berghe, Marketing Mayas: Ethnic Tourism Promotion in Mexico. Annals of Tourism Research, 22 (3): 568–588, 1995. 2. Aleksandra Alund, Ethnic Entrepreneurs and Other Migrants in the Wake of Globalization. International Review of Sociology, 13(1): 77–87, 2003. 3. Marc Askew, The Rise of Moradok and the Decline of the Yarn: Heritage and Cultural Constriction in Urban Thailand. SOJOURN, 11(2): 183–210, 1996. 4. Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Death of History? Historical Consciousness and the Culture of Late Capitalism. Public Culture, 4(2): 47–65, 1992. 5. Benita Howell, Weighing the Risks and Rewards of Involvement in Cultural Conservation and Heritage Tourism. Human Organization, 53(2): 150–159, 1994. 6. Donald Cole, Where Have the Bedouin Gone? Anthropological Quarterly, 76(2): 235–267, 2003. 7. Steven Dinero, Image Is Everything: The Development of the Negev Bedouin as a Tourist Attraction. Nomadic Peoples, 6(1): 69–94, 2002. 8. Adolf Ehrentraut, Maya Ruins, Cultural Tourism and the Contested Symbolism of Collective Identities. Culture, 16(1): 15–32, 1996. 9. Maribeth Erb, Tourism and the Search for Culture in Manggarai. Anthropologie et Sociétés, 25(2): 93–108, 2001. 10. James Hevia, World Heritage, National Culture, and the Restoration of Chengde. Positions, 9(1): 219–243, 2001. 11. Andrea Louie, Crafting Places Through Mobility: Chinese American “Roots-Searching” in China. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 8(3): 343–379, 2001. 12. Wiendu Nuryanti, Heritage and Postmodern Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 23(2): 249–260, 1996. 13. Peggy Teo and Brenda Yeoh, Remaking Local Heritage for Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 24 (1): 192–213, 1997. 14. Jeanne Brody, La Rue des Rosiers: Une Maniere d’Etre Juif. Paris: Autrement, 1995, p. 34. 15. Hermann Simon, The New Synagogue in Berlin and Its Reconstruction as the Centrum Judaicum. In Jewish Life in Germany Today, edited by Uri R. Kaufmann. Bonn: Inter Nationes, 1994, p. 188. 16. Andreas Nachama. From 1945 to the Present. In Andreas Nachama, Julius H. Schoeps, and Hermann Simon, eds., Jews in Berlin, pp. 221–244. Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 2002, p. 223. 17. Ibid., p. 237.

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18. Ruth Ellen Gruber, Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Chapter 9 1. To understand the larger frame of reference of the relations between European Jews and Israel, see Raymond Aron, De Gaulle, Israel et les Juifs. Paris: Plon, 1968; Jacques Hermone, La Gauche, Israel et les Juifs. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1970; Yves Azeroual, Mitterrand, Israel et les Juifs. Paris: R. Lafont, 1990; Doris Bensimon, Les Juifs de France et leurs Relations avec Israel, 1945–1988. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989; Sylvie Korcaz, Les Juifs de France et l’Etat d’Israel. Paris: Denoel, 1969; J. Leftwich, Anglo-Jewry and the State of Israel. Jewish Monthly, April 1949, pp. 10–21; L. Stein, Anglo-Jewry and Israel, Jewish Monthly, July 1950, pp. 215–222; and David Cesarani, The Jewish Chronicle and Anglo-Jewry, 1841–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 2. Michael Dahan and Gabriel Sheffer, Ethnic Groups and Distance Shrinking Communication Technologies. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 7 (1): 85–107, 2001. 3. The negative reaction from the French public as a result of the turmoil in the Middle East must be differentiated from the experience of World War II. Local Jews make a distinction between state anti-Semitism and popular anti-Semitism. An older Ashkenazi who is very active in the community said that “there are two sorts of anti-Semitism: popular anti-Semitism and state anti-Semitism. During the war, it was state anti-Semitism, most French people were publicly against it. The French people are like that, if there is state anti-Semitism, the French people would say, ‘we are against that.’ Had it been otherwise, they would have taken an opposite stance.” 4. Richard Marientras, Etre un Peuple en Diaspora. Paris: Maspero, 1975, p. 84.

Chapter 10 1. Keynote address delivered at the International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society held at the University of California at Berkeley, February 18–20, 2005. 2. For historical and sociological background on these neighborhoods, see J. Brody, La Rue des Rosiers: Une Manière d’Etre Juif. Paris: Autrement, 1995. Lothar Mertens, Davidstern unter Hammer und Zirkel. Die Judischen Gemeinden in der SBZ/DDR und ihre Behandlung durch Partei und Staat 1945–1990. Hildesheim: Olms, 1997, and Barry A. Kosmin and Nigel Grizzard, Jews in an Inner London Borough (Hackney): A Study of the Jewish Population of the London Borough of Hackney Based upon the 1971 Census. London: Narod Press, 1975. 3. On the digital home, see Diane Cook and Sajal K. Das, Smart Environments: Technologies, Protocols, and Applications. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2005, and Richard Harper (ed), Inside the Smart Home. New York: Springer, 2002.

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4. Michael Dahan and Gabriel Sheffer, Ethnic Groups and Distance Shrinking Communication Technologies. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 7(1): 85–107, 2001. 5. Ananda Mitra, Virtual Commonality: Looking for India on the Internet. In Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety. London: Sage, 1997, pp. 55–79; Ananda Mitra, Diasporic Websites: Ingroup and Outgroup Discourse. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 14(2): 158–181, 1997. 6. Radhika Gajjala, South Asian Digital Diasporas and Cyberfeminist Webs: Negotiating Globalization, Nation, Gender and Information Technology Design. Contemporary South Asia 12(1): 41–56, 2003; Lisa Nakamura, Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge, 2002; Beth E. Kolko et al., Race in Cyberspace. New York: Routledge, 2000. 7. Madeleine Mercedes Plasencia, Telecommunications in the TwentyFirst Century: Global Perspectives on Community and Diaspora Among Netcitizens. Administrative Law Review, 52(3): 1033–1043, 2000. 8. Angel Adams Parham, Diaspora, Community and Communication: Internet Use in Transnational Haiti. Global Networks, 4(2), 199–217, 2004; 9. Mark P. Whitaker, Tamil.net.Com: Some Reflections on Popular Anthropology, Nationalism, and the Internet. Anthropological Quarterly, 77: 469, 2000. 10. Kewen Zhang and Hao Xiaoming, The Internet and the Ethnic Press: A Study of Chinese Publications. The Information Society, 15: 21–30, 1999. 11. Mark Graham and Shahran Khosravi, Reordering Public and Private in Iranian Cyberspace: Identity, Politics and Mobilization. Identities, 9: 219–246, 2002; Anastasia N. Panagakos, Downloading New Identities: Ethnicity, Technology, and Media in the Global Greek Village. Identities, 10: 201–219, 2003. 12. Sorin Matei et al., Belonging in Geographic, Ethnic, and Internet Spaces. In The Internet in the Everyday Life, edited by Barry Wellman et al. Malden: Blackwell, 2002, pp. 404–427.

Chapter 11 1. I. Light and S. J. Gold, Ethnic Economies. San Diego: Academic Press, 2000. 2. Ramona Hernandez, The Mobility of Workers Under Advanced Capitalism: Dominican Migration to the United States. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 3. Carla P. Davis, Beyond Miami: The Ethnic Enclave and Personal Income in Various Cuban Communities in the US. International Migration Review, 3 (146): 450–469, 2004. 4. Michael Brenner, After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. 5. Patrick Simon and Claude Tapia, Le Belleville des Juifs Tunisiens. Paris: Editions Autrement, 1995, p. 14.

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6. Erik H. Cohen, L’Etude et l’Education Juive en France ou l’Avenir d’Une Communauté. Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1991, 50. 7. Doris Bensimon and Sergio Della Pergola, La Population Juive de France: Sociodémographie et Identité. Jerusalem: Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1984, p. 61. 8. Nancy Green, Les Travailleurs Immigrés Juifs à la Belle Epoque, Le Pletzl de Paris. Paris: Fayard, 1985. 9. Doris Bensimon and Sergio Della Pergola, La Population Juive de France: Sociodémographie et Identité. Jerusalem: Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1984, p. 45. 10. Patrick Girard, Pour Le Meilleur et Pour Le Pire: Vingt Siècles d’Histoire Juive en France. Paris Bibliophane, 1986, p. 479. 11. Sergio della Pergola, Un Nouveau Regard sur Les Juifs Francais. L’Arche 546–547, Août–Septembre 2003, p. 2. 12. Bernard Wasserstein, Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. 13. Doris Bensimon and Sergio Della Pergola. La Population Juive de France: Sociodémographie et Identité. Paris and Jerusalem: The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1984; Erik H. Cohen, L’Etude et l’Education Juive en France. Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1991; and Sergio Della Pergola, Un Nouveau Regard sur Les Juifs Francais. L’Arche 546–547, Août–Septembre, 2003. 14. Esther Benbassa, Histoire des Juifs de France. Paris: Edition du Seuil, 2000, p. 282. 15. Patrick Girard, Pour Le Meilleur et Pour le Pire: Vingt Siècles d’Histoire Juive en France. Paris Bibliophane, 1986, p. 489. 16. Daniel J. Elazar, People and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of World Jewry. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989, pp. 312–320. 17. Doris Bensimon, Les Juifs de France et leurs Relations avec Israel (1945– 1988). Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989, p. 74. 18. S. J. Prais, Polarization or Decline? A Discussion of Some Statistical Findings on the Community. In Jewish Life in Britain, 1962–1977 edited by Sonia L. Lipman and Vivian D. Lipman. New York: K. G. Saur, 1981, pp. 4–5. See also S. J. Prais and M. Schmool, The Size and Structure of the Anglo-Jewish Population, 1960–65. Jewish Journal of Sociology, 4 (1), 1968. 19. Geoffrey Alderman, London Jewry and London Politics 1889–1986. London: Routledge, 1989, p. 111. See also B. A. Kosmin and N. Grizzard, Geographical Distribution Estimates of Ethnically Jewish Population of the UK 1974. London: Board of Deputies of British Jews, mimeo, 1975. 20. David Cesarani, The Jewish Chronicle and Anglo-Jewry, 1841–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 239. See also Stanley Waterman and Barry Kosmin, British Jewry in the Eighties: A Statistical and Geographical Study. London: Research Unit, Board of Deputies of British Jews, 1986, p. 23. 21. M. Schmool and F. Cohen, A Profile of British Jewry: Patterns and Trends at the Turn of the Century. London: Board of Deputies, 1998.

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22. C. Holman and N. Holman, Torah, Worship and Acts of Loving Kindness: Baseline Indicators for the Charedi Community in Stamford Hill. Leicester: De Montfort University, 2002. 23. Harriet Becher, Stanley Waterman, Barry Kosmin, and Katarina Thomson, A Portrait of Jews in London and the South-east: A Community Study. Planning for Jewish Communities. JPR Report No 4. London: Institute for Jewish Policy Research, 2002. p. 47. 24. Simon Dein, Religion and Healing Among the Lubavitch Community in Stamford Hill, North London: A Case Study of Hasidism. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004, p. 54. 25. S. Levenberg, The Development of Anglo-Jewry, 1962–1977. In Jewish Life in Britain, edited by Sonia L. Lipman and Vivian D. Lipman. New York: K. G. Saur, 1981, p. 177. 26. Ibid., p. 176. 27. Miriam and Lionel Kochan, Great Britain. In American Jewish Year Book 2003, volume 103, edited by David Singer and Lawrence Grossman. New York: American Jewish Committee, 2003, p. 375 [360–378]. 28. Miriam and Lionel Kochan, Great Britain. In American Jewish Year Book 2001, volume 101, edited by David Singer and Lawrence Grossman. New York: American Jewish Committee, 2001, pp. 316–317 [305–320]. 29. Peter Laufer, Exodus to Berlin: The Return of the Jews to Germany. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003, p. 77. 30. Ignatz Bubis, He Who Builds a Home, Intends to Stay. In Jews in Germany after 1945: Citizens of “Fellow” Citizens? Edited by Otto R. Romberg and Susanne Urban-Fahr. Frankfurt: Tribune-Verlag, 2000, p. 21. 31. Andreas Nachama, East and West: The Jewish Religious Community in Berlin: 1945 to 1988. In Jews in Germany after 1945, edited by Otto R. Romberg and Susanne Urban-Fahr. Frankfurt: Tribune-Verlag, 2000, p. 118. 32. Miriam and Lionel Kochan, Great Britain. In American Jewish Yearbook 2002, volume 102, edited by David Singer and Lawrence Grossman. New York: American Jewish Committee, 2002, p. 309 [304–323]. 33. Meir Waintrater, France. In American Jewish Year Book 2003, volume 103, edited by David Singer and Lawrence Grossman. New York: American Jewish Committee, 2003, p. 389 [379–402]. 34. Toby Axelrod, Germany. In American Jewish Year Book, 2003, volume 103, edited by David Singer and Lawrence Grossman. New York: American Jewish Committee, 2003, p. 486 [466–495]. 35. Miriam and Lionel Kochan, Great Britain, p. 316. 36. Meir Waintrater, France, p. 340 [324–343]. 37. Ibid., pp. 340–341. 38. Olivier Guland and Michel Zerbib, Nous, Juifs de France. Paris: Bayard, 2000, p. 127. 39. Meir Waintrater, France, pp. 340–341. 40. Miriam and Lionel Kochan, Great Britain, pp. 295–296 [289–302]. 41. Wendy Kloke, Germany, p. 387 [374–396].

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42. Patrick Girard, Pour Le Meilleur et Pour Le Pire: Vingt Siècles d’Histoire Juive en France. Paris: Bibliophane, 1986, p. 499. 43. Philippe Bourdrel, Histoire des Juifs de France: De la Shoah à nos Jours. Paris: Albin Michel, volume 2, 1974, p. 370. 44. Wendy Kloke, Germany, p. 388. 45. Toby Axelrod, Germany, p. 474. 46. See the French Web site: hitech.alyah.com, accessed July 21, 2006.

Conclusion 1. See Michael Brenner, Jewish Life and Jewish Culture in Berlin After 1945. In Jewish Life in Germany Today, edited by Uri. R. Kaufmann. Bonn: Inter Nationes, 1994, p. 15. 2. Gerald Mars and Robin Ward, Ethnic Business Development in Britain: Opportunities and Resources. In Ethnic Communities in Business: Strategies for Economic Survival, edited by Robin Ward and Richard Jenkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 1–19. 3. Recent works on transnational urban systems that directly or indirectly address the agency issue have begun to shed light on this phenomenon; see, for example, Michael Peter Smith, Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization. Malden: Blackwell, 2001; John Eade (ed.), Living the Global City: Globalization as a Local Process. New York: Routledge, 1997; P. L. Knox and P. J. Taylor (eds.), World Cities in a World System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991; James W. White, Old Wine, Cracked Bottle?: Tokyo, Paris, and the Global City Hypothesis. Urban Affairs Review, 33(4): 451–477, 1998. Michel S. Laguerre, The Global Ethnopolis: Chinatown, Japantown and Manilatown in American Society. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000. Michel S. Laguerre, Urban Multiculturalism and Globalization in New York City: An Analysis of Diasporic Temporalities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.


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Index 9/11, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60 Adass Jisroel Community Center, 207 Adass Yisroel, 109 Adath Movement, 65 Yisroel, 65 Aden, 63, 67, 68, 94, 128 Annexation of, 62 Synagogue, 65 Adenite Jew, 67, 94 Advertisement, 99 Agudas Israel Community Services, 206 Algeria, 26, 28, 29, 84, 93, 191, 198, 200, 215 Algerian War, 85 Algerian(s), 28, 35, 88, 91, 138 Aliya(h), 206, 216 Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), 201, 202, 212 Allied Forces, 39 America, 41, 44, 70, 95, 98, 99, 152, 170, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186 See also United States American(s), 43, 78, 89, 91, 138, 185, 207, 214 African-, 58 American Academy (Berlin), 152 American Jewish Committee, 209 American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), 210, 212 American Jewish Yearbook, 200 Amsterdam, 71, 219 Anglo-German Cultural Forum, 81

Anti-Jewish measures, 24 Anti-Semitism, 5, 31, 32, 33, 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 60, 98, 124, 126, 141, 163, 165, 210, 218 Antwerp, 71, 95, 169, 170, 183, 188, 190, 191, 192, 206 Arab(s), 29, 30, 32, 67, 85, 88, 93, 112, 131, 180, 213 Arab countries, 31, 54, 71 Arabinization, 28 Arch-Orthodoxy, 184 Argentina, 77, 166, 168, 179, 184, 187 Ariel Sharon. See Sharon, Ariel Arrest, 22–23, 25–27, 35, 86 Artists, 6 Aryanize, 21 Ashkenazi, 22, 25, 26, 27, 29–30, 31, 33, 34, 70, 73, 75, 85, 86, 87, 88, 93, 104, 106, 113, 135, 141, 145, 171, 180, 189, 197, 198, 200 Community, 14, 197 Octogenarian, 30 Septuagenarian, 70 Ashkenazim, 30, 36, 64, 68, 84, 88, 105 Asia, 64 Assembly of Representatives of the Gemeinde, 208, 212 Assimilation, 3, 118, 119, 130, 136, 159, 203, 217 Association for Refugees in Germany from Shanghai, 40 Association of Jewish ex-Berliners, 81

259

260

Index

Association of the Naming of the Righteous, 161 Asylopolis, 4 Auschwitz, 26, 28, 48, 49, 144, 147, 148 Australia, 77 Austria, 74, 154 Axelrod, Toby, 214 B’nai B’rith Youth, 209 Baghdad, 67 Bank(s), 12, 24, 53, 214 Bar(s), 89 Bar/bat mitzvah(s), 185 Barclay House, 79 Barnet (borough), 202, 204, 205 Barrio, 3 Bastille Plaza, 32 Beacon Hill, Boston, 3, 5 Begin, Menachem (Prime Minister), 33 Belgium, 71, 77, 91, 169, 170, 183, 185, 190 Belleville, 198 Bensimon, Doris, 198 Berlin, 2, 3, 14, 37–60, 74, 97–99, 109, 141, 142, 144, 149–56, 172, 186–91, 197, 207–9, 217–19 Department of Culture, 151 East, 39–44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 149, 153, 207 Jewish Documentation Center, 50, 150 Judische Kulturtage, 149 Wall, 14, 38, 39, 41, 44, 149 West, 38, 39, 42, 44, 46, 48, 49, 99, 149, 151, 153, 207 Bertinotti, Dominique, 107, 124, 131, 132, 133 Beth Din, 88, 90, 170, 211 Federation of, 96 Bhabha, Homi, 102 Biotechnology, 196 Bishops, 85 Black, Gerry, 65 Black June, 32

Board of Deputies of British Jews, 200, 203, 206 Bobourg, 130 Bohemian bourgeois, 86 Bomb, 3, 11, 39, 71, 210, 219 Mail, 56 Threat, 56 See also Explosive(s) Bombing, 19, 21, 33, 35, 50, 62, 64, 71, 140 Bonkharan Synagogue, 64 Bookstore(s), 15, 25, 27, 90, 103, 104, 113, 122, 132, 155, 162, 166, 179, 180 Bordeaux, 26 Border-crossing practices, 61, 77, 159, 191 Boston, 3, 5 Boycott(s), 108 Britain, 65, 69, 73, 202 See also England, Great Britain British, 67, 109, 138, 169, 186, 206 Colony/colonies, 62, 65, 67, 68 Embassy, 51 Bubis, Ignatz, 52, 208 Budapest, 2 Built environment, 19, 20, 37 Bureaucrats, 133 Burma, 67, 108 Bush, George W., 34 Business(es), 15, 21, 23, 27, 63, 67, 73, 76, 79, 84–86, 91–100, 103–14, 122–35, 138, 140, 143, 154, 157, 162, 163, 179, 185, 186, 188, 189, 192, 206, 211, 215, 218, 223, 224 Big, 86 Cosmopolitan, 84 District, 15, 27, 83, 90, 220 Ethnic, 99, 157 Historical, 131 Immigrant, 83 Jewish, 23, 24, 76, 91, 92, 94–98, 105, 109, 115, 126, 131, 135, 221 Neighborhood, 12, 84, 99, 100

Index People, 22, 23, 27, 67, 74, 85, 91, 97, 122, 124, 141, 183, 204 Small, 27 Tourist-centered, 132 See also Tourism Transnational, 83, 97, 221, 224 Butcher, 85, 88, 93, 95, 104, 106, 125, 126, 131, 132, 166 California, 49, 51 Calotte, 31 Canada, 27, 42, 120, 186 Cardinals, 85 Carpenter, Juliet, 135 Car(s), 51, 112, 120, 121, 123, 125, 127, 134, 214 Castro district, 5 Catholic Church, 201 Person/people, 30, 87, 105, 166 Cell phone(s), 16, 175, 176, 178, 183, 184, 187, 189, 193 Cellular telephone, 68 See also Cell phone Central Council of Jews in Germany, 52, 55, 109, 208, 210 Central Rabbinical Congress, 170 Centre Rachi de Paris, 33 Centrum Judaicum, 99, 109, 207 Chagall, 25 Champs Elysées, 92 Charity/charities, 89, 165 See also tzedakah Charlottenburg, Germany, 38, 207 Chassidic, 65, 73 See also Hassidic Chat room(s), 128, 180, 181, 188, 189, 221 Chestnut Hill, 3 Chez Jo Goldenberg. See Goldenberg Restaurant Chicago, 32 Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan. See Kaplan, Jacob Chief rabbi/chief rabbinate, 200, 201, 206, 211

261

Chinatown, 3, 62, 137 Chirac, Jacques (Mayor of Paris), 32, 213 Christian, 96, 201 Celebrations, 106 Person/people, 49, 205 Christmas, 106 Chronopolis, 4, 84 See also Global chronopolis Church, 21, 42, 89 Catholic, 201 Citizenship, 3, 33, 35, 59, 119, 208 City hall, 1, 6, 7, 8, 15, 92, 107, 110, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 124, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 136, 159, 160, 178, 179, 190, 192, 217, 220, 221, 226 Civil, 102, 114 Society, 49 Time, 107, 111 Civilian, 60, 64, 201 Cloistering, 6, 7, 8 CNN, 187 Commerce, 2, 79, 93, 101, 130, 189 Commercialization, 126 Commissariat aux Questions Juives, 89 Commission on Jewish Affairs, 89 Commoditization, 139 Communication, 8, 13, 77, 159, 161, 169, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 183, 190, 192 Tools, 16, 188 Communist regime, 37, 39, 41, 60 Communists, 37, 39, 40, 41, 150 Community/communities Adeni, 65 Artists’, 6 Choice, of, 63 Ethnic, 83, 119, 136, 139, 143, 149, 172, 200, 220 Gated, 5 Gay, 85 Gentile, 108 Metropolitan, 12 Necessity, of, 63

262

Index

Community/communities (continued) Time, 102 Urban, 4, 15 Computer(s), 85, 108, 176, 177, 178, 179, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 191 See also Laptop Conseil Représentatif des Juifs de France (CRIF), 155, 161, 210, 213 Concentration camp(s), 22, 28, 29, 39, 62, 89, 109, 145, 147, 197 See also death camp, Nazi camp, Name of camp Conference on Jewish Material Claims, 45 Congregation, 29, 39, 64, 65, 71, 80, 109, 154, 165, 169, 201, 206, 207 Israel, of. See Adath Yisroel Conservative Party, 59 Person/people, 73 Synagogue, 63, 192 Consistoire, 154, 155, 156, 161, 201, 202, 206, 211, 213 Consistorial taxes, 211 Conversion, 201 Cosmopolitan(s), 160 Business(es), 84 Council of Paris, 128 Countryside, 21, 86 Courier, 169 CPS. See Crown Prosecution Service Credit association, 83 Creolopolis, 4 CRIF, 155, 161, 210, 213 Crime, 3, 8, 28, 119, 146, 210 Cross-border relationships, 13 Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), 210 Culinary traditions, 88, 138, 141, 189 Cultural heritage, 46, 130, 139, 151 Cultural traditions, 7, 117 CWA, 212 Cyberforums, 16 Cyberspace, 177

Cypriots, 73 Czechoslovakia, 74, 196 Dahan, Michael, 164 Darly, Gillian, 73 “day of preparation,” 15, 102 Days of Yiddish Culture (East Berlin), 149 Death camps, 21, 24 See also concentration camps, Nazi camps, Name of camp Decloistering, 8 Defferre, Gaston (Interior Minister), 32 Deghettoization, 195 Deglobalization, 9, 11 See also Globalization, Reglobalization, e-globalization Dein, Simon, 203 Della Pergola, Sergio, 198 Denaturalization laws, 21 Deportation, 11, 21, 24, 35, 48 Despoliation, 35 Program, 21 Detention center(s), 21, 22 Diamond trade, 170, 183 Diaspora, 8, 30, 78, 79, 99, 159, 160, 165, 178, 225 Digital, 177 Jewish, 2, 31, 36, 38, 55, 78, 81, 106, 115, 136, 162, 164, 167, 168, 169, 178, 187, 189, 196, 202, 213, 223, 224, 227 Diasporans, 1, 226 Diasporic Community, 2, 79, 81, 83, 84, 102, 136, 138, 157, 169, 177, 187, 192, 195, 213, 223 Clientele, 15 Globalization, 16 Neighborhood, 4, 9, 102, 160, 195, 223, 227 Network, 136 Religion(s), 10 Residents, 1, 99 See also Diasporans Security, 20

Index Site(s), 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 23, 36, 38, 57, 61, 78, 81, 97, 117, 129, 136, 137, 157, 159, 160, 169, 171, 172, 175, 195, 212, 213, 216, 218, 219, 223 Urbanism, 14, 38, 173, 175, 191, 193, 195, 198, 206, 215, 216, 220, 224 Digital, 16, 178, 191 Code, 111 Management, 91 Neighborhood(s), 177, 178 Digitization, 177 Diplomats, 55, 196 Dispersion, 37, 46, 77, 197, 220, 224 Displaced-person camps, 42 Displacement, 7, 63 Dissident(s), 32, 118, 124, 135 Divorce, 200, 212 Docks (London), 64 Dominican Republic, 226 Downtown, 62, 63, 76, 109, 128, 214 Drancy, 145 See also concentration camp, death camp, Nazi camp Drug(s), 132, 134 Trafficking, 112 Dunstan Road Congregation, 207 East Berlin, 14, 39–44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 149, 153, 207 East End (London), 15, 62, 64, 66, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 146 East German Republic, 40, 43 See also German Democratic Republic e-business, 191 e-globalization, 175, 178, 189, 191, 192 Diasporic, 193 Institutional, 192, 193 e-mail(s), 53, 179, 180, 181, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 192, 221, 223 Economy, 21, 70, 98, 117, 157, 222 Enclave, 83, 196, 197, 222 Ethnic, 8, 83, 92, 196, 222

263

Edgware, 68, 75 Edmonton, 74 Egypt, 30, 31, 65, 68, 81 Einheitsgemeinde, 208 Einstein Forum (Potsdam), 152 Eleventh Arrondissement, 22, 145 Ellen Gruber, Ruth. See Gruber, Ruth Ellen Email. See E-mail Embassy/embassies, 35, 213 British, 51 German, 150, 208 Israeli, 161, 187 Employment, 5, 24, 54, 63, 101, 139, 219, 221 Enclave, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 76, 80, 116, 139, 163, 171, 196, 206, 211, 213, 215, 221, 226 Diasporic, 12, 14, 101, 171, 225 Economy/economies, 83, 196, 197, 222 Ethnic, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 16, 21, 83, 119, 130, 159 Global, 22, 61, 80 Historic, 195 Immigrant, 3 Jewish, 1, 2, 5, 14, 61, 80, 81, 157, 169, 218, 220, 221, 222 Local, 8, 172 Poor, 3, 197 Rich, 3 Transnational, 222 Urban, 3, 169 England, 20, 45, 67, 68, 75, 94, 109, 181, 186, 196, 214, 220 See also Great Britain, Britain Enlist, 31 Enlistment, 21 Entrepreneurs, 15, 16, 99, 139, 192, 206, 221 Ethnic, 83, 93, 99, 139, 159 Ethiopia, 166 Ethnic Business(es), 99, 157 Business community, 157 Business district, 27 Clientele, 225

264

Index

Ethnic (continued) Commerce, 119 Community, 83, 119, 136, 139, 143, 149, 172, 200, 220 Economy, 8, 83, 92, 196, 222 Enclave, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 16, 21, 83, 119, 130, 159 Entrepreneur, 83, 99, 139, 159 Entrepreneurship, 139 Festivities, 15 Identity, 23, 83, 119, 136, 137, 189 Neighborhood, 8, 19, 83, 118, 120, 130, 132, 137, 142, 157, 159–60, 178, 200, 218 Policy, 130 Press, 79, 178 Quarter, 5, 7 Sites, 139, 221 Space, 19, 33 Spatial transformation, 19 Time, 110 Tourism, 157, 221, 223 Yellow pages, 99 Ethnicity, 3, 4, 99, 119, 197, 200 Ethnopolis, 1, 4 Euro Tunnel, 169 Europe Central, 27, 84, 198, 200 Charlemagne’s, 1 Eastern, 2, 15, 22, 35, 48, 64, 72, 74, 75, 77, 87, 90, 138, 187, 196, 197, 198, 200, 210 Western, 2, 75, 214 European Jewish Congress, 209 European Union, 1, 9, 20, 37, 45, 101, 102, 119, 158, 172, 175, 177, 195, 196 Evacuees, 64 Exoticism, 143 Exploitation, 143 Explosive(s), 56 See also Bomb Extraterritorial relations, 4, 12, 13, 14, 120, 172, 175 Fascism, 43 Fascist regime, 37

Fax(es), 53, 91, 169, 176, 177, 179, 188, 192 Federal Jewish Agency, 52 Federation of Beth Din, 96 Federation of Synagogues, 211 Feminist studies, 48 Festival, 16, 115, 137, 149, 150, 152, 153, 189, 222 See also Name of festival “final solution,” 4 Financial Aid, 172, 216, 226 Linkages, 13 Finchley, 66 Folklore, 97 Fonds Social Juif Unifie, 200, 201, 202, 210, 213 Foundation for the Rebuilding of Synagogues, 41 Fourth Arrondissement, 107, 110, 111, 124, 130, 132, 133, 136, 145, 160, 161, 179, 188, 198, 226 France, 21, 28, 29, 31–33, 61, 68, 90, 96, 98, 103, 105, 118, 125, 130, 131, 141, 143, 151, 156, 162–64, 168, 170, 190, 199, 200, 202, 210, 214 Free market(s), 6, 131 Law of, 131 French Army, 29 Language, 24, 25, 29, 30, 91, 104 Militia, 27 People, 22, 28, 29, 33, 34, 91, 113 Police, 25, 32 Republic, 32 Right, 32 See also Rightists Friedman, Michael, 52 Friends of the Hebrew University, 209 Fulfilled community, 112 Gan Eden, 65 Gang(s), 112 Gated community/communities, 5

Index Gateshead, 169, 170 Gay Community, 85 Neighborhood, 92, 105, 124, 135 Person, 58 Quarter, 168 Gemeinde, 208, 212 Gentile(s), 15, 23, 25, 39, 47, 85, 88, 89, 91, 92, 98, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113, 114, 142, 144, 151, 165, 167, 220 See also Goyim Gentrification, 85, 86, 89, 135, 198 Commercial, 86, 89 Demographic, 86 German army, 62 Occupation, 35 German Civil Society, 49 German Democratic Republic, 40, 41 Germantown, 3 Germany, 20, 23, 27, 37, 40, 44–46, 47, 52, 53, 56–59, 66, 67, 74, 97, 98, 149, 172, 187, 199, 207, 208, 210, 214, 219 East, 40, 42, 44, 53, 54, 212 Nazi, 21 Reunification of, 14, 39, 50, 197 West, 40, 42, 45, 53 Gestapo, 19, 25, 40, 145 Ghetto, 2, 64, 91 Black, 3 Jewish, 2, 15, 39, 41, 109, 146, 217 Ghettoization, 7, 103, 119 Temporal, 103 Global City/cities, 13, 14, 21 Chronopolis, 1, 6, 101, 115 Communication networks, 36, 177 Communities of refuge, 171, 219 Family circuits, 189 Flows, 3, 10, 21, 35, 101, 159, 177, 223, 225 Institution(s), 21 Interaction(s), 176, 177, 180, 215 Neighborhood, 4, 9, 14, 19, 20, 21, 60, 61, 77, 99, 175, 179, 217, 219, 221, 224, 225

265

Networks, 9–10, 11, 38, 49, 61, 81, 95, 116, 172, 193, 206, 223, 226 Rhythm, 12 Social formations, 2, 3, 21, 171 Urban system, 13, 16, 17 Globalization Diasporic, 16 Digital, 16 European, 1 Infrastructural, 13 Metropolitan, 3 Microprocesses of, 37, 61 Neighborhood, 3, 4, 10, 17, 36, 37, 117, 178 Process of, 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 49, 157, 159, 176, 221, 225 Relational, 13 Theory, 3, 9, 84 See also: Deglobalization, e-globalization, Reglobalization Goldenberg Restaurant, 11, 21, 30, 32, 33, 36, 37, 85, 128, 140, 219 Golders Green, 3, 14, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80, 93, 95, 145, 146, 149, 156, 163, 169, 170, 175, 177, 182, 185, 187, 196, 205, 206, 210, 211, 220 Mizrachi Society, 80 Synagogue, 80, 212 Synagogue Literary and Cultural Society, 79 Zionist society, 79 Governance, 60, 172, 201, 202, 208, 211, 224 Government, 25 British, 65 Central, 5, 213 City, 2, 5, 8, 135 Communist, 41 French, 21, 22, 32, 35, 111, 119, 122, 141 German, 27, 41, 52, 53 Honecker, 41 Israeli, 33, 34, 35, 53 Jobs, 24

266

Index

Government (continued) Municipal, 118, 119, 195 National, 10 Officials, 32, 111, 209 State, 8, 201 Goyim, 88, 183 See also Gentile Graham, Allan, 102 Graham, P. Crow, 102 “Grand Pardon,” 26 Grassroots, 218 Activism, 135 Associations, 135 Movements, 52 Organizations, 13 Great Britain, 199, 202 Greenbelt, 47 Gregorian Calendar, 15, 101, 102, 110 Time, 110, 111 Week, 103 Year, 114 Grenade, 32 Grizzard, Nigel, 64, 65, 73 Grosse Hamburger Strasse, 48 Gruber, Ruth Ellen, xv Gucci, 126 Gurvitch, Georges, 102 Guttman’s London Antwerp Service, 169 Habalil.com, 186 Hackney Borough, 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 73, 74, 202, 203, 204, 205 Hanchard, Michael, 102 Hanukah, 106, 107 See also Jewish Holidays Hasidic Community, 108, 170, 181, 220 Jews, 5, 62, 64, 66, 69, 73, 107, 108, 170, 182, 183, 203, 220 Hasidim, 7, 66, 72, 202 See also Hasidic Jew Haubermann, Harmut, 45 Hebrew, 26, 77, 97, 151, 170, 181, 182, 184, 187 University, 209

Hegemony, 102 Hendon, 66, 68, 70, 195 Herald Tribune, 187 Heritage tourism, 16, 137, 139, 140 See also Jewish tourism, Tourism Heterogeneity, 8, 20, 37, 39, 65, 90, 225 High holiday(s), 42, 48 See also Jewish holiday(s), Name of holiday Historical Landmark, 133 Sites, 139, 140 Holocaust, 2, 3, 26, 27, 34, 38, 39, 48, 49, 40, 45, 46, 61, 64, 74, 97, 143, 144, 146, 148, 197, 198, 210, 217, 221 See also Shoah Holy days, 48, 51, 83, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 114, 115, 116, 140, 155, 189, 222 Holy land, 68 Homeland, 1, 3, 4, 6, 10, 20, 28, 30, 31, 61, 78, 79, 80, 83, 88, 90, 93, 99, 100, 101, 116, 117, 137, 139, 157, 158, 159, 160–65, 171, 172, 175, 178, 187, 190, 191, 192, 195, 202, 206, 217–19, 224 Institutions, 12 See also Motherland Honecker, Erich, 41 Hospital(s), 166, 208, 209 Hostland, 4, 100, 160, 171, 217, 218, 224, 226 See also Diaspora-hostland relations Hotel aux Juifs, 133 Housing, 3, 5, 7, 8, 29, 33, 37, 39, 45, 62, 72, 104, 119, 135, 143, 198, 220 Association, 40 Authority, 40 Human rights, 202 Hungarians, 40, 65, 68, 69 Hungary, 23, 27, 65, 68, 74, 198

Index Identity, 31, 45, 69, 177, 216 Cultural, 96, 124, 171 Global, 8, 36, 61, 84, 128 National, 2 Religious, 7 Social, 2 Urban, 38 Immigrants, 4, 20, 22, 23, 36, 39, 44, 55, 62, 64, 65, 84, 88, 94, 109, 159, 166, 196, 197, 199, 200, 207, 212, 214 Arab, 30 Jewish, 2, 15, 48, 63, 67, 68, 81, 169, 197, 198, 206 Polish, 152 Poor, 5 Russian, 42, 142, 182 West Indian, 73 Immigration, 3, 29, 44, 55, 64, 65, 74, 84, 197, 201, 208 Jewish, 1, 5, 73, 200 Policy, 1 India, 62, 65, 68, 75, 81, 187, 197 Incapacitation, 11 “indirect relations,” 160 Information Technology (IT), 9, 175, 178, 193, 214, 188, 196 Infrastructural links, 12 Infrastructure, 10, 12, 16, 38, 54, 69, 79, 97, 102, 115, 119, 120, 123, 155, 173, 176, 222–24 Instant message(s), 181 See also Chat room(s), Virtual interaction Integration, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 14, 20, 38, 75, 81, 83, 103, 119, 140, 159, 171, 177, 202, 206, 210, 214, 217, 219, 224, 225 Transglobal, 5 Intellectual communities, 172 Interconnectivity, 176 Interenclave relations, 115, 221, 222 Interior Minister Gaston Deffere. See Deffere, Gaston International Communication, 176

267

Migration, 20, 35, 196, 225 Terrorism, 32 Internet, 16, 36, 68, 78, 91, 99, 169, 175–91, 193, 212, 221 Café, 179, 182, 183, 184, 188, 189 Internment, 11, 21, 22, 145 Interpol, 156 Intifada, 21, 34, 35, 36, 52, 54, 62, 105, 165, 167, 180, 213 Intraenclave relations, xvi Involuntary departure, 21 Iran, 62, 64, 69, 81, 197 Iranian(s), 69, 178 Iraq, 34, 62, 65, 69, 71, 81, 182, 197 Iraqi(s), 69, 183 Islamization, 28 Israel, 2, 16, 20, 28, 30–31, 32, 34–35, 37, 42, 44, 49, 54, 56, 60, 62, 66–72 Israeli Army, 31 Intelligence, 51 Politics, 16 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 32 Israelis, 34, 53, 57, 59, 60, 62, 65 Israelitische Synagogen-Gemeinde zu Berlin, 208 Istanbul, 89, 154 IT. See Information Technology Italy, 95, 183 Japan, 94, 181 Jerusalem, 20, 23, 151, 172, 182, 192, 209, 214 Day, 153 Muslim quarter, 34 See also Quarters, Muslim Jerusalem Post, The, 213 JerusalemPost.org, 182 Jewish Agency for Israel, 207, 209 Boarding School, 170 Business(es), 23, 24, 76, 91, 92, 94–98, 105, 109, 115, 126, 131, 135, 221 Business cycle(s), 92, 93, 115

268

Index

Jewish (continued) Calendar, 6, 15, 101, 102, 104, 111, 115, 149 Care Center, 75, 185, 186, 206 Celebrations, 15, 92, 93, 106, 107, 109 Cemetery/cemeteries, 109, 150 Children, 28, 49, 145 Community Bulletin Board, 187 Community Center, 98, 207 Council, 55 Cultural Center (East Berlin), 38, 42, 48, 98, 142, 152, 186 Cultural Heritage Week, 151, 158 Culture, 2, 43, 45, 97, 150, 151 Culture Club, 43 Culture Week, 150–52 Diaspora, 2, 31, 36, 38, 55, 78, 81, 106, 115, 136, 162, 164, 167, 168, 169, 178, 187, 189, 196, 202, 213, 223, 224, 227 See also Diasporans Documentation Center (Berlin), 50, 150, 151 Education, 44, 146 Emigration, 21, 31, 64 Enclave(s), 1, 2, 5, 14, 61, 80, 81, 157, 169, 218, 220, 221, 222 Film Week, 152 Ghetto, 2, 15, 39, 41, 109, 146, 217 Heritage Day (London), 149 Holiday(s), 95, 110, 111, 124, 150, 157, 162 Holy days, 51, 83, 108, 109, 110, 114, 155, 222 Immigrants, 2, 15, 48, 63, 67, 68, 81, 169, 197, 198, 206 Immigration, 1, 5, 73, 200 Martyrs, 107 Media, 212 Merchants’ Association (Paris), 15, 110, 118, 120, 133, 135, 136, 188, 189, 192 Migration, 15, 21, 35, 62, 64, 66, 73, 74, 195 People. See Jews

Population, 2, 4, 22, 23, 28, 38, 61, 65, 67, 68, 70, 76, 88, 90, 92, 135, 161, 195–200, 202–4, 206, 207, 217 Product(s), 95, 97 Property, 21, 23, 39, 40, 45, 46, 47 School(s), 48, 108, 109, 126, 145, 156, 185, 201, 207, 212 See also Education Security, 49–52, 154 Street Fair, 153 Summerfest, 152 Time, 107, 110, 111 Tourist(s), 36, 37, 117, 141, 192, 221 Trader, 131 Transnation, 129, 160, 172 Week, 12, 102, 103, 105, 108, 152 Workers, 16, 198 Jewish Chronicle, The, 78, 79, 80, 212 Jewish Yellow Pages, 96, 169 Jew(s), 22, 24, 32, 39 Adenite, 67, 94 American, 26, 38, 41, 60, 138, 141, 168, 192 Ashkenazi, 22, 25, 26, 27, 29–30, 31, 33, 34, 70, 73, 75, 85, 86, 87, 88, 93, 104, 106, 113, 135, 141, 145, 171, 180, 189, 197, 198, 200 British, 200, 202, 203, 206, 210, 212 Burmese, 67 Eastern European, 3, 35, 48, 64, 66, 198, 210 European, 67, 158, 168 Ethiopian, 168 French, 31, 32, 35, 77 Hasidic, 5, 62, 64, 66, 69, 73, 107, 108, 170, 182, 183, 203, 220 See also Hasidim Hungarian, 68, 69, 74, 198 Indian, 62, 64, 65, 69 Iraqi, 72 Lithuanian, 25, 65, 69 Moroccan, 30, 35, 68, 69, 79, 93, 140, 197, 198

Index North African, 3, 210 Orthodox, 57, 58, 63, 67, 68, 71, 72, 75 Polish, 40, 44 Portuguese, 69 Russian, 27, 44, 48, 70, 142, 153, 166, 168, 198 Sephardic, 28, 29, 30, 35, 64, 68, 69, 72, 77, 88, 93 Spanish, 69 Jews for Jews, 42 Joseph Migueret Committee, 145 Jospin, Lionel (Prime Minister), 213 Journalist(s), 29, 31, 39, 46, 51, 59, 135, 152 Judaism, 28, 29, 34, 44, 128, 167, 182, 183, 210, 220, 222 Judeo-Arabic language, 26, 29, 36 Judische Kulturtage, 149 Judischer Kultureverein, 109 Juvenile delinquency, 119 Kadasia, 96 Kadima Hotel, 76 Kaftan, 62 Kaplan, Jacob (Chief Rabbi), 210 Kashrut, 88, 154, 201, 211 Kensington, 72 Khobloch, Charlotte, 52 Kibbutz, 31, 162, 167 Kindergarten, 28, 201 See also School Kippa. See Yarmulke Kloke, Wendy, 212 Kochan, Lionel, 206–7 Kochan, Miriam, 206–7 Kolbo, 99, 109, 207 Korn, Salomon, 52 Kosher, 78, 88, 98 Association, 96 Label, 211 Operation, 211 Product(s), 90, 211, 222 Shops/stores, 15, 29, 75, 84, 96, 106, 179, 192, 222 Signs, 211 Kosmin, Barry A., 64, 65, 73

269

Krystallnacht, 153 Labor market, 210 Laptop(s), 182 See also Computer Lauder Foundation, 38, 207, 209 Lauder Judisches Lehrhaus, 207, 209 Laufer, Peter, 208 Laurents, Arthur, 80 Law enforcement, 7 See also Police Lawyer, 33, 46, 53, 74, 125, 134, 163, 165, 179 Le Marais, 3, 11, 14, 21, 61, 86, 110, 125, 126, 130, 135, 143, 145, 175, 177, 187, 192, 196, 197, 198 Le Sentier, 198 Lebanon, 32 Lees, Loretta, 135 Left wing, 44, 54, 153 Leftists, 85 Leo Baeck House, 48 Leo Baeck Institute, 172, 192 Lithuania, 25, 65, 68, 80, 172, 219 Jews 25, 65, 69 Little Haiti, 3 Havana, 3 Italy, 3 Litvak mitnagdim, 65 Lobbyist(s), 41, 159 Local history, 6, 10, 14, 20, 32, 37 Locality, 3, 10, 11, 12, 20, 37, 49, 60, 175, 193, 223 Localization, 175 London, 3, 5, 14–16, 61–81, 91, 93, 96, 107–9, 140, 145–46, 149, 156, 163, 169, 172, 177, 181–88, 192, 196, 197, 202–7, 210, 211, 212, 218, 220 Long-distance calling, 176 Los Angeles, 46, 190 Louis XIV, 143 Lubavitch, 65, 66, 212 Chabad, 46, 99 Community, 76, 202, 207 Foundation, 64

270

Index

Lycée Charlemagne, 30 Lyon, 89 Mail bomb, 56 Mairie, 161 Manchester, England, 96, 169, 170, 220 Mander, David, 64 Marriage, 69, 71, 95, 183, 200, 201, 219, 221 Arrangements, 62 Marseilles, 89 Mass, 105 Mauroy, Pierre (Prime Minister), 32 McDonald’s, 89, 131 Medieval, 2, 5, 6, 32, 128, 217 Mendelssohn, Moses, 49 Merchants, 15, 89, 97, 112, 117, 120, 125, 129, 131, 133, 135, 136, 142, 155, 189 Association. See Jewish Merchants’ Association See also Traders Meshedi, 65 Metro-Paris, 198 Metropolis, 2, 3, 4, 61, 76, 142, 195, 216, 217, 225, 227 Mexico, 79 Middle East, 15, 28, 32, 59, 64, 75, 165, 167, 180, 210, 213 Midwest, 57 Migrant(s), 11, 63, 73 Migration, 1, 23, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69, 71, 72 In-migration, 62 Interurban, 72 Jewish, 15, 21, 35, 62, 64, 66, 73, 74, 195 Out-migration, 62 Transnational, 84 Urban, 63 Military, 36, 62. 67, 155, 196, 214 Service, 35, 51, 60 Milk and Honey, 187 Minister of Culture, 118 Ministry of Finance, 111

Mitte District (Berlin), 39, 45, 50 Mitterand, François (President), 32, 33 Modernization, 118, 137, 157, 217, 226 Plan, 15 Mom-and-pop shop/store, 132, 163 Morocco, 26, 28, 29, 30, 67, 68, 69, 77, 79, 84, 93, 165, 170, 183, 191, 197, 198, 215 Moscow, 153 Moses Mendelssohn Center, 152, 214 Mossad, 164 Motherland, 31, 222 See also Homeland MSN messenger, 181 See also Instant message Multimedia environment, 16, 188 Multinational firms, 196 “multiple time,” 102 See also Jewish time Munich, 50 Municipality, 119, 131 Museum(s), 3, 48, 86, 90, 131, 132, 134, 137, 140, 143 Muslim(s), 30, 34, 49, 54, 56, 57, 58, 87, 88, 156, 205 N-16 Area, 66 Nachama, Andreas, 44, 149, 213 Napoleon, 154, 201 National Holocaust Memorial Day (Paris), 149 Nation-state, 3, 20, 28, 31, 83, 118, 119, 136 Nazi, 2, 24, 54, 64 Camps, 144 See also Death camp, concentration camp Forces, 3, 19 Occupation, 21, 61, 104 Persecution, 72 Raids, 22 Social order, 23 Troops, 21 Nazis, 35

Index NBC News, 208 Neighborhood Business(es), 12, 84, 99, 100 Cloistered, 19 European, 1, 217 Ethnic, 8, 19, 83, 118, 120, 130, 132, 137, 142, 157, 159–60, 178, 200, 218 Global, 4, 9, 14, 19, 20, 21, 60, 61, 77, 99, 175, 179, 217, 219, 221, 224, 225 Globalization, 1, 3, 4, 10, 17, 36, 37, 117, 178 Institutions, 12 Renovation, 119, 120, 130 See also urban renewal Neo-Nazis, 33, 53, 54, 57 Network. See Transglobal, Transnational Neue Synagoge, 50, 109, 207 New Year, 106, 114, 168, 189 New York, 49, 69, 70, 95, 96, 151, 153, 170, 172, 183, 184 City, 13, 23, 102, 108, 190, 192, 206 New York Times, 136 Newspaper(s), 16, 25, 35, 36, 56, 80, 167, 172, 172, 176, 180, 187, 190, 212, 220, 221, 226 See also Name of newspaper Niche, 2, 10, 13, 17, 19, 62, 85, 89, 103, 117, 120 Nongovernmental organization (NGO), 79, 178, 218 North Africa, 15, 26, 28, 30, 36, 64, 65, 90, 113, 138, 166, 187, 198, 200 North-Western Reform Synagogue, 207 Norwood Ravenswood, 206 Notre Dame, 130 Office Public d’Aménagement et de Construction, 33 “Old Paris,” 143 Olive trees, 34

271

Online communication(s), 136, 192 OPAC, 33 Oppenheimers Regis Hotel, 170 Oranienburgerstrasse, 41, 50, 109, 146 Synagogue, 43, 48, 51 Oratories, 15, 89, 134 Orthodox, 57, 58, 63, 68, 71, 72, 75, 98, 99, 104, 107, 110, 111, 138, 170, 176, 184, 190, 201 Community, 71, 72, 98, 170, 206 Jews, 57, 58, 63, 67, 68, 71, 72, 75 Oslo Accords, 34 Otherization, 7 Palestine, 42, 78, 109, 160, 197 Committee, 78 Palestinian(s), 32, 34, 35, 36, 54, 153, 162, 165 State, 34 Panethnopolis, 4 Paramilitaries, 56 See also Military Paris, 3, 6, 11, 14–15, 19–36, 61, 84– 90, 92–93, 103–7, 110, 111–14, 117–35, 138, 140–45, 160, 161, 164, 165, 178–81, 187, 188, 189, 191, 192, 195, 196, 198–202, 210, 213, 215, 217–18, 226 Parisians, 90, 106, 125, 128, 134, 198, 217, 219 Park, 71, 104, 130 Theme, 16, 139, 142–43, 156, 157 Parking (car), 50, 51, 121, 122, 126, 127, 132, 134 Parliament European, 1 French, 28 Passover, 92, 98, 150 See also Pesach Pawn shop(s), 24 Pedestrianization, 123, 125, 126, 132 Pergola, Sergio Della. See Della Pergola, Sergio Persecution, 11, 21, 40, 49, 63, 72, 77, 84, 173, 219, 221, 226 Religious, 2, 4, 62, 171

272

Index

Pesach, 106, 163 See also Passover Phone(s), 36, 81, 86, 96, 108, 115, 162, 167, 169, 177, 179, 180, 181, 183, 186, 188, 223 Card, 176 Mobile, 85, 86, 108 Public, 176 See also Cell phone(s) Pieds Noirs, 29 Pilgrimage, 112, 114, 140, 141 Place des Vosges, 130, 178 Plan Malreaux, 118 Plaque(s), 28, 110, 142–48 Pletzl, 3, 29, 36, 128 Pogrom, 22, 64, 72, 74, 84 Poland, 23, 25, 27, 40, 48, 66, 67, 73, 74, 75, 183, 187, 198, 219 Polemic, 131 Police, 3, 21, 22, 55, 60, 109, 112, 115, 154, 155, 156, 164, 210 French, 25, 32, 156, 164 German, 50, 51, 151, 214 Municipal, 213 Station, 24 See also Law enforcement Political party(ies), 21, 125 Political turmoil, 63 Politician(s), 32, 52, 59, 85, 135, 136 Politics, 1, 13, 16, 43, 118, 129, 133, 162, 163, 165, 182, 190 Portugal, 71 Post-Holocaust community/ communities, 197, 201 Potsdam, 49, 152, 207, 214 Poverty, 119 Prague, 2 President François Mitterand. See Mitterand, François Press, 79, 178, 221 French, 32, 165, 180 Israeli, 180 Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. See Jospin, Lionel Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy. See Mauroy, Pierre

Propaganda, 54, 59 Protestant, 30 See also Christian Public Buildings, 48, 144 Library, 178, 185, 188 Opinion, 135 Protests, 210 Relations, 152, 178 Quartering, 5 Quarters Ethnic, 5, 7 Latin, 6 Muslim, 34 Poor, 5 Rich, 5 Urban, 5 Queen Mary, 69 Rabbi(s), 42, 64, 67, 69, 80, 107, 169, 182, 192, 200, 201, 221, 222 Rabbinical students, 206 Rabin, Yitzhak, 162 Racial discrimination, 3, 8 Radio, 79, 180, 187, 213, 226 Raids, 21, 25 Reacquisition, 47 Real estate, 24, 41, 47, 72, 84, 87, 99, 108, 111, 164, 218 Speculation, 85, 91, 111, 164, 218 Reconstituted communities, 197 Recreation, 85, 130, 206 Reform Synagogue, 38, 63, 74, 192, 207 Refugees, 3, 4, 64, 69, 172, 197, 206 Reglobalization, 9, 12, 19, 35 Relational links, 13 Religious Clustering, 5 Sites, 41, 163 Relocalization, 11 Remade space, 19, 20

Index Renovation, 15, 37, 45, 46, 47, 117–20, 122, 129, 130, 135, 136, 139, 157, 190, 192 Policy, 132 Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France. See Conseil Représentatif des Juifs de France Residential life, 130 Restaurant(s), 21, 24, 29, 32, 35, 76, 89, 92, 93, 97, 98, 99, 104, 117, 122, 132, 138, 140, 142, 173, 207, 215 See also Name of restaurant Restoration area, 46 Richmond district, 62 Right-wing, 51, 54 Rightist(s), 85, 112, 125 Romania, 198 Rome, 79 Ronald Lauder Foundation, 209 Rosh Hashana, 106, 168 Rue Bussy, 29 des Ecouffes, 26, 27, 121, 122, 128, 178, 179 des Francs Bourgeois, 85, 92, 105, 114, 121, 124 des Rosiers, 27, 32–34, 85, 87–90, 92, 105, 106, 112, 113, 120–24, 127, 128, 131, 133, 138, 140, 141, 154, 155, 161, 167, 168, 179 Fernand Duval, 32, 122, 128, 133, 138 Russia, 23, 25, 27, 48, 66, 75, 89, 166, 182, 187, 198 Stalinist, 43 See also Soviet Union Russian(s), 49, 153, 207 Rykestrasse, 38, 152, 207 Synagogue, 49, 48, 50, 207 Sabbath, 15, 64, 80, 86, 87, 92, 94, 96, 102, 103, 107, 108, 110, 111, 119, 222 Saint, Andrew, 73

273

Samuel Sirat, René. See Sirat, René Samuel San Francisco, 5, 62, 137 Sassen, Saskia, 13 Satmar, 65, 70, 96 Scheunenviertel, 3, 5, 38–60, 97–99, 109, 141, 143, 145, 146, 152, 186, 187, 197, 207–9 Schoeps, Julius, 214 School Jewish, 48, 108, 109, 126, 145, 156, 185, 201, 207, 212 Public, 28, 58, 108 Rabbinical, 169, 207 Secondary, 48 Schuetz, Klaus (Mayor, Berlin), 149 Secular institution, 42 Security, 16, 20, 24, 37, 49–52, 54–60, 62, 112, 116, 120, 134, 140, 163, 164, 173, 210, 213, 218 Guard, 50 51, 56, 75, 213 Institution(s), 56 Jewish, 49, 52, 151, 154, 155, 156 Neighborhood, 154, 160, 213 Transglobal, 60 Seder, 98 Segregation, 1, 5, 8, 119 Housing, 3 Racial, 3, 7 Religious, 3, 7 Senate Berlin, 46, 150 French, 32, 133 Senior citizens, 26, 108, 109, 146, 185, 206, 221 Sephardic, 28, 29, 35, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 75, 77, 887, 88, 90, 93, 103, 105, 106, 112, 113, 135, 140, 155, 171 Community, 14, 65, 67, 71, 72 Immigrants, 200, 201 Rabbi, 200, 201 Refugees, 197 Rite, 29, 67, 200, 201

274

Index

Sephardic (continued) Stores, 189 Synagogue, 211 Sephardim, 29, 30, 67, 84, 105 Sephardization, 201 September 11, 2001. See 9/11 Shabbat, 42, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109 Service, 46, 48, 50, 192 Shah, 62, 69 Shanghai, 40 Shapiro, Michael, 102 Sharon, Ariel, 34, 53 Sheffer, Gabriel, 164 Shin Bet, 164, 213 Shoah, 21, 26, 28, 30, 57, 215 See also Holocaust Shtreimels, 62 Sirat, René Samuel, 200 Sister congregations, 206 Sites of memory, 15, 16 Sitruk, Joseph, 201, 213 Six Days’ War, 21, 30–31, 36, 54, 62, 67, 71, 167, 206 Skinheads, 33 Smith, Michael Peter, 13 Social Clubs, 81 Death, 24 Democrats, 59 Institutions, 15, 76 Services, 16, 20, 146, 195, 206, 207 Welfare, 48, 153 Socialism, 167 Socialization, 7, 16, 185 Soldiers, 56, 89, 183 Sorbonne, 6 South Africa, 77, 80, 187 South America, 90 Southgate, 75 Soviet occupation, 39 See also Occupation Soviet Union, 44, 45, 48, 55, 207, 210 See also Russia Spatial ghettoization, 103

Spam (internet), 180, 181 Spanish, 30, 69 Spiegel, Paul, 52 Spoliation Scheme, 23 Squatters, 132 Stamford Hill, 14 Star of David, 23 Store(s) Book. See Bookstore Clothing, 26, 31, 40, 47, 86, 87, 89, 91, 133, 134, 168 Corner, 86, 106, 131 Franchise, 134 Jewish, 87, 89, 92–97, 99, 105, 107, 108, 111, 126, 220 Kosher, 84, 222 Stroschein, Christoph, 39 Student(s), 6, 16, 29, 49, 90, 108, 109, 138, 152, 173, 206 Sub-Saharan Africa, 87 Suburb(s), 63, 74, 77, 86, 92, 112, 113, 125, 135, 165, 198, 202, 207 Suburbanites, 113 Suicide bombing, 35 See also Bomb Sukkot, 106 Sweatshop(s), 70 Sweden, 57 Swiss, 95, 185 Switzerland, 44, 79, 96, 154, 169, 170, 185, 190 Synagogue, 15, 19, 21, 29, 32, 33, 35, 43, 51, 56, 57, 63, 64, 67–69, 74, 84, 87, 89, 104, 107–9, 110, 117, 126, 134, 140, 141, 146, 151, 152, 153, 156, 165, 166, 167, 168, 195, 200, 201, 202, 208, 210, 213, 215, 218, 220, 221, 221 Reform, 38, 63, 74, 192, 207 See also Name of synagogue Syrian, 131 Talmud, 168 Tax(es), 2, 4, 42, 117, 119, 142, 157, 165, 211

Index Technopolis, 4 Tel Aviv, 151, 206, 208, 214 Television, 32, 33, 177, 180, 212, 214, 226 Temple, 42 Jerusalem, of, 1 Mount, 34, 53 Temporal ghettoization, 103 Temporization, 22 Tenements, 47 Territory, 4, 7, 36, 85 Terrorism, 32 Terrorist group(s), 32 Terrorist attack, 56 Textile, 94, 95, 198 Card, 24 Industry, 26, 87 Store, 85, 104 Theme park, 16, 139, 142–43, 156, 157 Theresienstadt, 49 Thieves, 132 Third Reich, 49, 217 See also Nazi, Germany Tithe(s), 165 TJF, 212 Tokyo, 13 Torah, 127, 170, 207 Tour guides, 139, 221 Tourism Diasporic, 158, 221 Ethnic, 157, 221, 223 Heritage, 16, 137, 139, 140 Tourist attraction 137 Tourist(s) American, 32, 141, 192 Jewish, 36, 37, 117, 141, 192, 221 Trade, 15, 117 Trade, 16, 89, 95, 106, 115, 117, 123, 131, 196, 206, 214 Transnational, 95 Trader, 123 Chinese, 131 Jewish, 131 Transfer of property, 45 Transformed space, 20

275

Transglobal Diasporic urbanism, 14, 38, 173, 175, 191, 195, 198, 206, 215, 216, 220, 224, 227 Network, 217 Security, 60 Urban circuit, 61 Urban system, 13, 227 Urbanism, 2, 38, 129, 222–26 Transnation Jewish, 129, 160, 172 Transnational Business(es), 83, 97, 221, 224 Integration, 217, 219 Migration, 84 Network(s), 9, 11, 14, 20, 23, 36, 99, 127, 159, 160, 161, 191, 219 Relations, 1, 20, 35, 49, 61, 78–81, 84, 115, 159, 160–61, 166, 169–72, 179, 216, 223, 225 Trade, 95 Transnationalization, 140, 175 Transportation, 8, 24, 84, 99, 214 Travel agencies, 24, 139, 163, 221 Trotsky, 25, 89 Tunisia, 28, 29, 35, 84, 93, 191, 198, 201, 215 Turkey, 75, 94 Tzedakah, 89, 165, 166, 172 See also Charity UJF. See United Jewish Federation Unemployment, 54, 119 UNESCO, 139 United Jewish Federation (UJF), 166 United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA), 206 United Nations, 28 United States, 20, 27, 30, 34, 42, 49, 50, 57, 58, 77, 80, 90, 91, 96, 109, 130, 140, 151, 170, 187, 190, 191, 197 2004 Presidential election, 34 United Synagogue, 74, 211 University of California, 50

276

Index

Unmade space, 19 Uptown, 63, 76, 77 Urban Administrators, 129 Community, 4, 15 Planning, 118, 120, 134 Renewal, 119, 130, 132 See also Neighborhood renovation Renovation, 15, 135 Restructuring, 13 Space, 2, 19, 217, 225 Urbanism, 2, 14, 38, 129, 173, 175, 191, 195, 198, 206, 215, 216, 220, 222–27 Diasporic, 14, 38, 173, 175, 191, 193, 195, 198, 206, 215, 216, 220, 224 Transglobal, 2, 38, 129, 222–26 Uruguay, 211 USA. See United States

Web site(s), 128, 132, 177, 181, 182, 184, 186, 189, 192, 213, 221 Wedding(s), 77, 88, 185 West Berlin, 38, 39, 42, 44, 46, 48, 49, 99, 149, 151, 153, 207 Festival 149 Westernization, 137 White House, 41 Whitechapel, 3, 1, 62, 63, 64, 69, 60, 73, 75, 145, 197 Wilmersdorf, Germany, 38, 207 Women’s Evangelical Center, 47 Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO), 206 World Jewish Congress, 210 Jewish Relief (WJR), 207 ORT, 207 War II, 2, 14 Worship, 101, 115, 212 Places of, 29, 48, 133, 145, 224

Venice, 2 Veteran, 72, 109 Vichy regime, 21, 22 Videochat, 182 Vienna, 161 Vilna/Vilnius, 172, 219 Virtual Community/communities, 176, 178, 180 Debate, 127, 129 Fragmentation, 190 Game(s), 181 Interaction, 179, 191 Virtuality, 129, 180, 192, 193 Voluntary departure, 21

Yarmulke(s), 26, 31, 36, 109, 140 Yellow pages, 96, 99, 169 Yemen, 62, 63, 65, 67, 81, 187, 197 Independence of 62, 65 Yemenite, 69, 71 Yeshiva, 38, 69, 80, 168, 170, 173, 221 Yiddish, 3, 23, 25, 26, 29, 36, 77, 78, 84, 87, 141, 151, 170, 184 Festival, 153 Yiddishland, 23 Yom Kippur, 15, 26, 94, 106, 164, 168, 213

Wandering Jew, The, 186 Warsaw, 2, 219 Waserman, Isaac (Rabbi), 80

Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland. See Central Council of Jews in Germany Zentralwohlfahrtstelle, 210 Zilber Travel, 169

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