Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume V: Israel: State and Society, 1948-1988 (Studies in Contemporary Jewry)

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STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY

The publication of Studies in Contemporary Jewry was made possible through the generous assistance of the Samuel and Althea Stroum Philanthropic Fund, Seattle, Washington.

INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY JEWRY THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM

ISRAEL

State and Society, 1948-1988 STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY AN ANNUAL

V 1989 Edited by Peter Y. Medding Published for the Institute by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS New York • Oxford

To Moshe Davis founder of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of its establishment in recognition of his vision, inspiration, and leadership

Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

Copyright © 1989 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505827-5 ISSN 0740-8625 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-649196

2 4 6 8 1 09 7 5 3 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper


Editors: Jonathan Frankel, Peter Y. Medding, Ezra Mendelsohn Institute Editorial Board Michel Abitbol, Mordecai Altshuler, Haim Avni, David Bankier, Yehuda Bauer, Moshe Davis, Sergio DellaPergola, Sidra Ezrahi, Moshe Goodman, Yisrael Gutman, Menahem Kaufman, Israel Kolatt, Pnina Morag-Talmon, Dalia Ofer, U. O. Schmelz, Gideon Shimoni, Geoffrey Wigoder Managing Editor: Eli Lederhendler

Reviews Editor: Hannah Koevary

International Advisory and Review Board Chimen Abramsky (University College, London); Abraham Ascher (City University of New York); Arnold Band (University of California, Los Angeles); Doris Bensimon (Universite de la Sorbonne Nouvelle); Bernard Blumenkrantz (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Lucjan Dobroszycki (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research); Solomon Encel (University of New South Wales); Henry Feingold (City University of New York); Martin Gilbert (Oxford University); Zvi Gitelman (University of Michigan); S. Julius Gould (University of Nottingham); Ben Halpem (Brandeis University); Irving Howe (City University of New York); Paula Hyman (Yale University); Lionel Kochan (University of Warwick); David Landes (Harvard University); Seymour Martin Lipset (Stanford University); Heinz-Dietrich Lowe (Oxford University); Arthur Mendel (University of Michigan); Michael Meyer (Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati); Alan Mintz (University of Maryland); George Mosse (University of Wisconsin); Gerard Nahon (Centre Universitaire d'Etudes Juives, Paris); Gyorgy Ranki (Hungarian Academy of Sciences); F. Raphael (Universite des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg); Jehuda Reinharz (Brandeis University); Monika Richarz (Germania Judaica, Kolner Bibliothek zur Geschichte des deutschen Judentums); Joseph Rothschild (Columbia University); Ismar Schorsch (Jewish Theological Seminary of America); Marshall Sklare (Brandeis University); Michael Walzer (Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton); Bernard Wasserstein (Brandeis University); Ruth Wisse (McGill University).

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Preface

Since this volume is being published during the fortieth year after Israel's establishment, we have devoted the opening symposium to an analysis and evaluation of state and society in Israel since 1948. To meet our publishing schedule, the articles in the symposium were commissioned in 1986 and completed in 1987. Consequently, significant recent events and developments (e.g., the 1988 Israeli elections; the Palestinian uprising or Intifada, and the PLO's change of course and subsequent international recognition), and their effects upon Israeli politics and society, are not dealt with directly. Nevertheless, as the reader will doubtless become aware, it is a tribute to the scholarship of our contributors that their articles have not been superseded by recent events and changes. On the contrary, they provide a depth and perspective that help to explain and make comprehensible the current situation in many spheres: the behavior and attitudes of Israeli Arabs in response to the uprising (Smooha); the dramatic increase in the political participation and power of ultra-Orthodox Jews (Ravitzky); the relative decline in the intensity of the ethnic cleavage between Ashkenazim and Sephardim in Israel despite smoldering resentments and a marked socioeconomic gap (Morag-Talmon and Ben-Rafael); the response of the political structures and leadership to Israel's manifold problems (Galnoor); the interrelations among those problems (Horowitz and Lissak); or the crisis of identity and legitimation that Israel is currently undergoing (Cohen). Moreover, two substantial review articles (Gutmann and Pollock) examine many of these developments by means of a critical analysis of the works of scholars writing on Israeli society and politics. Although in ancient Israel forty years constituted one political generation, a recurrent theme of the symposium is that in contemporary Israel the post forty years encompass two distinct political generations or periods: from 1948 through 1967 and post-1967. The first period, which may perhaps aptly be termed the heroic phase, is characterized by severe initial problems that were steadily overcome. It is marked by the establishment of the state, the War of Independence and the Sinai Campaign, the ingathering of the exiles, agricultural development ("making the desert bloom") steady economic growth, strong and inspirational political leadership, the consolidation of democracy, and the furtherance of the innovative collective and cooperative social frameworks that had made Israel a human laboratory which gained the admiration of idealists and the attention of scholars. Even severe social problems (e.g., those associated with immigrant absorption, such as a lack of sensitivity to the human and ethnic needs of immigrants) were not apparent at the time and only surfaced in the next generation. The spirit of the age was one of

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Preface

optimism, a feeling that Israel's problems could be solved, given resolute political leadership, time, sufficient idealism, human will, and voluntary individual and collective commitment. This was followed by a troubled period, an era of uncertainty. It began with the dramatic military victory in 1967, but in its wake arose numerous problems, most notably those associated with the addition of new territories and their population. After an initial spurt, the Israeli economy became sluggish. Issues that had been solved or resolved in the first generation resurfaced (e.g., border disputes, the identity of the state, the quality of democracy). Moreover, new problems developed, such as the ethnic gap and religious conflicts. After the 1973 war, defense and security became more pressing matters, resulting in an increasing economic burden. As a result, Israel became highly dependent on the United States. Not only did these various problems seem to be interlocked, but the political and military leaderships were found wanting by an increasingly independent and critical public. Even the highlight of the period—the peace treaty with Egypt—did not fully satisfy initial expectations. In short, society and polity became polarized and paralyzed. The spirit of the period was one of deep uncertainty, a sense that Israel's interlocking internal and external problems were close to intractable. The government seemed to lack the capacity and authority to settle its internal problems, as well as the necessary resolve to settle its external conflicts, for which, in any event, acceptable partners and conditions did not appear to be available. Thus, despite considerable economic, military, social, and political achievements, forty years after its establishment Israel is still straggling to resolve such basic problems of sovereign national existence as the identity of the state; the location of its boundaries; the defense and security of the population; the legitimacy of its authority; and its relationship with Diaspora Jewry. How these are resolved will determine whether Israel, as an independent state, will succeed in living up to the high ideals of the Jewish prophets and of modern democracy, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence at the time of its establishment. This volume also contains a number of articles covering a wide range of topics within the broad field of contemporary Jewry, as well as a large number of book reviews. A departure from our past format is the inclusion of two exchanges between scholars, offering varying interpretations of particular problems and issues. The first relates to current trends in mixed marriages, whereas the second deals with different responses to the Jewish national movement. In both cases, the analysis has implications for the future pattern of Jewish life in two areas that have long been of fundamental significance to Jews: the relations between Jews and non-Jews and the impact of the increasing assimilation of the latter into Jewish families and communities; and the question of the attitudes of Jews toward Israel under different political, social, and cultural conditions. But, as the initial symposium makes clear, what was once merely the dream, hope, or object of speculation of Jewish thinkers has become a living reality, warts and all.

Preface

This volume could not have been published without the skillful editing of Eli Lederhendler and Hannah Koevary. When, as often happens in Israel, Eli Lederhendler was called to the army during critical stages of the editing process, he was most ably replaced by David Rechter. Their efforts and commitment are deeply appreciated. P.Y.M.


Contents

Symposium Israel: State and Society, 1948-1988 Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, The State of Israel at Forty Pnina Morag-Talmon, The Integration Processes of Eastern Jews in Israeli Society, 1948-1988 Eliezer Ben-Rafael, The Changing Experience, Power and Prestige of Ethnic Groups in Israel: The Case of the Moroccans Sammy Smooha, The Arab Minority in Israel: Radicalization or Politicization? Aviezer Ravitzky, Exile in the Holy Land: The Dilemma of Haredi Jewry Itzhak Galnoor, Israeli Democracy in Transition Erik Cohen, The Changing Legitimations of the State of Israel

3 25 39 59 89 126 148

Essays Sergio DellaPergola and Uziel O. Schmelz, Demographic Transformations of American Jewry: Marriage and Mixed Marriage in the 1980s Calvin Goldscheider, American Jewish Marriages: Erosion or Transformation? Sergio DellaPergola and U. O. Schmelz, American Jewish Marriages: Transformation and Erosion—A Rejoinder to Calvin Goldscheider Asher Cohen, New Approaches to French Public Opinion Under Vichy, 1940-1942 XI

169 201 209 215

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Yeshayahu A. Jelinek: Leo Baeck, Nahum Goldmann and the Money from Germany (A Document) Allon Gal, Independence and Universal Mission in Modern Jewish Nationalism: A Comparative Analysis of European and American Zionism (1897-1948) Responses to Allon Gal 1. Arnold Eisen 2. Arthur Aryeh Goren 3. Yosef Gorny 4. Ezra Mendelsohn Rejoinder by Allon Gal Michael J. Cohen, Letter to the Editor

236

242

269 275

Review Essays Deborah Weissman, The Jewish Woman: Traditions and Transitions Lloyd P. Gartner, New York Intellectuals Emanuel Gutmann, Views of Israeli Politics: Political Science or Political Advocacy? David Pollock, Political Religion in Israel Moshe Lissak, Ben-Gurion and the Palmah: Two Points of View

279 289 295 305 315

Book Reviews (Reviews are listed according to author of book, followed by book title and name of reviewer. Books surveyed in Review Essays section appear in this listing as well—Ed.) Gideon Aran, Erez yisrael: bein dat upolitlkah I Sam LehmanWilzig Stephen Berk, Year of Crisis, Year of Hope. Russian Jewry and the Pogroms of 1881-1882 I Shaul Stampfer Saul Bernstein, The Renaissance of the Torah Jew I Shubert Spero David Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History I Eli Lederhendler Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law I Deborah Weissman

325 327 329 331 279

Contents

Alexander Bloom, Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World I Lloyd P. Gartner Jakub Blum and Vera Rich, The Image of the Jew in Soviet Literature. The Post-Stalin Period I Shimon Markish S. Daniel Breslauer (comp.), Contemporary Jewish Ethics: A Bibliographical Survey I Avraham Greenbaum S. Daniel Breslauer (comp.), Modern Jewish Morality: A Bibliographical Survey I Avraham Greenbaum Richard I. Cohen, The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership During the Holocaust I Robert O. Paxton Anne and Roger Co wen, Victorian Jews Through British Eyes I Todd M. Endelman Mark Cowett, Birmingham's Rabbi: Morris Newfield and Alabama I Mark Bauman Daniel J. Elazar, Israel: Building a New Society I Emanuel Gutmann Yoav Gelber, Lamah pirku et hapalmah? Hakoah hazevai bema'avar meyishuv lamedinah I Moshe Lissak Yaakov Geller, Zmihatah ushki'atah shel kehilah—hayehudim haashkenazim vehasefaradim beromaniah, 1919-1941 I Dov Levin Calvin Goldscheider, Jewish Continuity and Change: Emerging Patterns in America I Barry A. Kosmin Calvin Goldscheider and Alan S. Zuckerman, The Transformation of the Jews I Eli Lederhendler Nancy L. Green, The Pletzl of Paris: Jewish Immigrant Workers in the Belle Epoque I David Weinberg Blu Greenberg, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition I Deborah Weissman Vasilii Grossman, Na evreiskie temy I Edith Rogovin Frankel Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate I Edith Rogovin Frankel Peter Hanak (ed.), Zsidokerdes—asszimildcio, antiszemitizmus. Tanulmdnyok a zsidokerdesrol a huszadik szdzadi Magyaorszdgon I Denis Silagi Miriam Joyce Haron, Palestine and the Anglo-American Connection I Michael J. Cohen Donald L. Herman, The Latin American Community of Israel I Haim Avni Hannah Herzog, 'Adatiut politit—dimui mul meziut I Abraham Diskin

Xlll

289 333 336 336 337 339 340 295 315

343 344 346 348 279 351 351

355 358 359 361

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Susannah Heschel (ed.), On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader I Deborah Weissman Martin Jones, Failure in Palestine: British and United States Policy After the Second World War I Shlomo Slonim Jan Karski, The Great Powers and Poland, 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta I David Engel Jacob Katz, The Darker Side of Genius: Richard Wagner's AntiSemitism I Geoffrey Eley Michael Keren, Ben-Gurion and the Intellectuals: Power, Knowledge and Charisma I Yaron Ezrahi Elizabeth Koltun (ed.), The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives I Deborah Weissman Marianne Krull, Freud and His Father I Nellie Thompson Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State I David Pollock Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Religion and Politics in Israel I David Pollock Wm. Roger Louis and Robert W. Stookey (eds.), The End of the Palestine Mandate I Shlomo Slonim Paul Robert Magosci, Ukraine: A Historical Atlas I Ezra Mendelsohn Shimon Markish, Primer Vasiliia Grossmana I Edith Rogovin Frankel Bruce Mazlish, The Meaning of Karl Marx I Murray Wolfson William J. McGrath, Freud' s Discovery of Psychoanalysis: The Politics of Hysteria I Nellie Thompson Medvetdnc I Denis Silagi Moshe Meiselman, Jewish Woman in Jewish Law I Deborah Weissman Ylana N. Miller, Government and Society in Rural Palestine, 1920-1948 I Haim Gerber George L. Mosse, German Jews Beyond Judaism I Paul MendesFlohr Shlomo Naaman, Ferdinand Lassalle I Moshe Zimmerman David Newman (ed.), The Impact of Gush Emunim: Politics and Settlement in the West Bank I David Pollock Philip G. Nord, Paris Shopkeepers and the Politics of Resentment I David Weinberg

Contents

279 369 362 363 365 279 367

305 305 369 372 351 373 367 355 279 374 376 380 305 348

Contents

Theodore Norman, An Outstretched Arm—A History of the Jewish Colonization Association I Haim Avni Conor Cruise O'Brien, Siege. The Saga of Israel and Zionism I Norman Rose Raphael Patai, Nahum Goldmann. His Missions to the Gentiles I S. Zalman Abramov Arnold Paucker (ed.), with Sylvia Gilchrist and Barbara Study, Die Juden im Nationalsozialistischen Deutschland/The Jews in Nazi Germany, 1933-1943 I Menahem Kaufman Howard R. Penniman and Daniel J. Elazar (eds.), Israel at the Polls, 1981: A Study of the Knesset Elections I Emanuel Gutmann Leon Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism, Volume IV, Suicidal Europe, 1870-1933 I Robert S. Wistrich Dina Porat, Hanhagah bemilkud I Dalia Ofer Giinter von Roden, Geschichte der Duisburger Juden I Menahem Kaufman Hans Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia I Michael Aronson Nathan Rotenstreich, Jews and German Philosophy: The Polemics of Emancipation I Mitchell Cohen Howard M. Sachar, Diaspora: An Inquiry into the Contemporary Jewish World I Gideon Shimoni Samuel Sager, The Parliamentary System of Israel I Claude Klein Jonathan D. Sarna (ed.), The American Jewish Experience I David A. Gerber Joachim Schoenfeld, Holocaust Memoirs: Jews in the Lwow Ghetto, Janowski Concentration Camp and as Deportees in Siberia I Shimon Redlich Julius H. Schoeps (ed.), Im Streit um Kafka und das Judentum. Der Briefwechsel zwischen Max Brod und Hans-Joachim Schoeps / Shimon Sandbank Anita Shapira, Mipiturei harama 'ad piruk hapalmah; sugyot bemaavak 'al hahanhagah habithonit, 1948 I Moshe Lissak Daniel Shimshoni, Israeli Democracy: The Middle of the Journey I Emanuel Gutmann Robert Simon (ed.), Zsidokerdes Kelet—es Kozep-Europdban. (Fejlodes-tanulmdnyok I Denis Silagi

xv

382 385 388

391

295 394 396 400 402 406 409 412 413

414

416 315 295 355

xvi

Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 I Haim Gerber Russell A. Stone, Social Change in Israel: Attitudes and Events 1967-1979 I Emanuel Gutmann Alan M. Wald, The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s I Lloyd P. Gartner Nathan Weinstock, Le pain de misere I Rina Poznanski Michael Wolffsohn, Politik in Israel I Emanuel Gutmann Jonathan S. Woocher, Sacred Survival, the Civil Religion of American Jews I Stephen Sharot

Recently Completed Doctoral Dissertations Contents for Volume VI

Contents

418 295

289 420 295 422

426 429

Symposium Israel: State and Society, 1948-1988


The State of Israel at Forty Dan Horowitz (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY) Moshe Lissak (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

The establishment of the State of Israel was a historical turning point for the Jewish people, for the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) as a territorial entity and for the Yishuv—the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine. For nearly two millennia, the Jews in the lands of their dispersion lacked a center of political authority and were vulnerable to discrimination and persecution. Their plight eventually led to a search for a solution to what became known in both Jewish and European parlance as "the Jewish problem." Various solutions were put forward, among them Zionism—ideologically motivated Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel.1 The creation of the State of Israel also had a major impact on the Land of Israel as a territorial entity. Although the partition of Palestine and the exodus of most of the Arabs from what became the State of Israel seemed merely yet another chapter in the turbulent history of this small land, it constituted a demographic and geographic upheaval that marked out the boundaries of a new Israeli collectivity. In this arena of Jewish history, in which the Jews renewed their connection with the land, the Yishuv emerged in May 1948 as a full-fledged political community. It was the social and political character of the Yishuv, a "state in the making" under the Mandate, that enabled it to succeed in the armed struggle between Jews and Arabs and that made possible a gradual transition to statehood.2 During the first four decades of Israel's existence, wars and waves of immigration (aliyah) were the major signposts in the country's development. Apart from the War of Independence, the most important conflict was the Six Day War of 1967. It brought about further change in the state's territorial boundaries and demographic balance, and created a significant gap between the area under full Israeli sovereignty and that under military control.3 Moreover, these three historical arenas—the Jewish people, the Land of Israel and the Yishuv—had global significance. Both Zionism and Arab nationalism were stimulated by, and modeled on, modern European nationalism. The initial intra3

4

Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak

communal conflict between Jews and Arabs in Eretz Israel was played out in a region divided into British and French spheres of influence. The emergence of Israel and its neighboring Arab states as autonomous protagonists in their own Middle Eastern conflict resulted from the processes of decolonization after the Second World War. Subsequently, the continuous involvement of the superpowers in the Israeli-Arab conflict derives from the centrality of the Middle East in the global balance of power, which stems from the area's strategic position and its vast oil reserves. Because of this international dimension and because of certain of its salient social characteristics, Israel has drawn the attention of social scientists with broad theoretical or comparative concerns. In our discussion we examine these themes in general outline. Ideological Impetus Prior to independence, the waves of aliyah to Eretz Israel were, for the most part, ideologically motivated. What is more, ideological commitments fueled the separatist tendencies that made the Yishuv a quasi-autonomous society.4 The revival of Hebrew as a living language, which became the cultural common denominator in the Yishuv and later in Israel, was inspired by ideology. After the establishment of the State of Israel, Zionist ideology continued to inform some of its fundamental political decisions, the most notable being to facilitate and encourage mass Jewish immigration in the 1950s.5 Despite the waning influence of ideology over recent years, its impact is still keenly felt in some important political controversies such as the conflict over the ultimate disposition of the territories conquered in the 1967 war.6 Overall there remains a constant tension between commitment to ideological principles and the possibility of their realization in a rapidly changing social reality. The dominant Zionist ideologies of pre-state colonization in Eretz Israel aspired to a just social order and, therefore, stressed the goal of social change—the subordination of current needs to future objectives and the preference for collective interests over those of the individual.7 But when the bearers of these dynamic ideological tendencies assumed control of the political structures of the state, the preservation of their rule became an end in itself. This, in turn, engendered conservative tendencies inimical to the striving for social change. Political dominance was a source of material rewards, prestige and power for members of the ruling elites. Readiness to meet the immediate needs of various groups came at the expense of future-oriented commitments and bred acceptance of the status quo. The gap between ideals and reality was further widened by a political framework that made compromises among parties and movements the prime principle of political relationships. The erosion of ideological commitment in Israeli society as a whole and within its various political and social movements has several aspects. First, it reflects an incomplete realization of ideology. This factor is characteristic of attempts to foster revolutionary and Utopian ideological commitments under conditions of institutionalization and routinization,8 and is not peculiar to Zionism or to Israeli society.9

5

The State of Israel at Forty

On the one hand, the absence of a sharp transition from a prerevolutionary to a post-revolutionary situation in Israel left its distinctive mark on the problem of routinization and institutionalization. On the pther hand, the social aspect of the Zionist revolution developed gradually along with arriving waves of immigration. Likewise, the political climax of the Zionist revolution—the conclusion of the British Mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel—was not the beginning of a process of political institutionalization, but the culmination of institution building that had started earlier.10 A second aspect of the erosion of ideology in Israeli society stems from the tension generated by the influence of the end-of-ideology concept on the general intellectual climate. The pragmatic outlook of the new professional and technocratic elites that arose with the state was more compatible with the decline-of-ideology belief that marked Western societies in the 1950s and 1960s11 than with the ideological prescriptions of the veteran elites of the movement.12 This gap resulted in compromises that, at times, meant adapting ideology to the need to get things done or merely paying lip service to ideology. The third source of the erosion of ideology stems from the fact that Zionism, which sought to provide a broad basis of consensus in Israeli society, in practice offered only a limited common ground on such fundamental questions as the shape of the ideal social order, the place of religion in society and the response to the Arab-Jewish conflict. Amos Oz, the novelist, clearly grasped this problem when he wrote that "Zionism is a family name, not a proper name," with members of this "family" appearing under the guise of labor Zionism, religious Zionism, and so forth.13 Ideology thus became a divisive force in the political system, even a source of polarization, whose disintegrative potential could be blunted only through bargaining that entailed the compromise of principles. Israel as a ' 'New Nation'' The Jewish members of Israeli society shared a common historical connection to the cultural and communal traditions of the Jewish people. This clearly sets Israel apart from most, if not all, of the new states that arose after the Second World War. Israel is not a "new nation in an old society," but rather a new state and a new society for an ancient people.14 Israel was thus spared many of the problems encountered by other developing countries whose traditional social structures often imposed constraints on modernization.15 Israeli society, then, was not a tabula rasa. But it is unique among developing countries in that the diverse social and cultural traditions that influence behavior and values were for the most part imported with the immigrants from their countries of origin. Even the common core of Jewish religious observance and belief was overlaid with local or regional variations in lifestyle and behavior.16 Many of the immigrants had not previously been exposed to the far-reaching influence of the secularization characteristic of Europe and the New World. For the most part, Middle Eastern and North African immigrants were not directly affected by secularization, industrialization and nationalism until they came to Israel.17

6


Once there, they had to adapt to a society whose institutions were shaped by elites who were inspired by these revolutionary processes and who sought to mold Israel as a modern nation-state. The encounter between the relatively modern institutions and values of the Yishuv and the traditional ways of life of many of the immigrants did not take place on equal terms. The system into which these newcomers were "absorbed," as Israeli terminology put it, was clearly socially and politically dominant.18 As a result, the immigrants' particularistic traditions had little impact on the development and consolidation of Israeli society that took place rather quickly in the 1950s and early 1960s. Unlike other developing countries in this crucial period, traditional forces hardly restrained modernization in Israel. The institutions of Israeli society could therefore develop synchronically without the troublesome lags that appeared elsewhere in the pace of development in various spheres such as agriculture and industry, the bureaucracy, the military and the family.19 But as the adherents of traditional ways of life began to break out of their peripheral status in Israeli society and demand a more central role, their particularistic values began to exert greater influence on public life, especially in the spheres of education20 and religious expression.21 In general, as in other new states, the traditional forces holding back modernization have survived to a greater extent than was predicted when these societies embarked on the path of modernity.22 Consequently, tradition and modernity have come into conflict in Israel as traditionalist forces chip away at the cultural and political patterns that were dominant in the Yishuv and that shaped the emergent institutions of the state. Small Society, Regional Power Israel is one of the smallest sovereign states on the face of the globe. Its population in 1985 came to about 4.25 million, not including the Arabs in the occupied territories.23 The striking disproportion between Israel's small size and its international importance is most apparent from a strategic perspective. Militarily Israel is considered to be the most powerful state in the Middle East, an area of central importance in international affairs and one fraught with more armed conflicts than any other region since the Second World War. Israel's combat-ready military prowess equals that of certain medium-sized powers and exceeds that of some considerably larger and wealthier states.24 Moreover, Israel is reported to have either nuclear weapons or at least real nuclear potential, thus putting it in an exclusive category of states.25 Israel's disproportionate international prominence is also linked to a shared religious concern for the Holy Land by Jews, Christians and Moslems. Relations between the latter two faiths and the Jewish people are somewhat problematic. Christianity's ambivalence to the Jews has deep historical and theological roots, whereas the Moslem world sees Israel as an alien entity in the heart of a predominantly Moslem and Arab region. The centrality of Israel for Diaspora Jewry, implicit in Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state, assumes wider significance from the fact that the largest Diaspora


7

communities are located in the United States and the USSR. The prominence of Jews among the elites in Western countries further underlines Israel's importance. These strategic and cultural factors have also influenced developments within Israel. A major consequence of the disproportion between Israel's size and its international importance is the great diversity and intensity of its international ties, particularly its economic, political and security dependence on the United States.26 On the other hand, the adaptation of Israel's institutional structure to the country's need for constant exposure to, and ties with, the outside world is manifest in the security and scientific as well as in the cultural and entertainment spheres. Israel's disproportionately extensive and highly centralized bureaucracy owes part of its development to its role as an intermediary between Israel's institutions and citizens and various international and Jewish organizations abroad. Occasionally the disproportion between Israel's size and its needs has added to the burdens of an already-overburdened system. These burdens have not been borne equally because some sections of the population have been alienated from Israel's national tasks from the outset. For example, the manpower that can be mobilized for security needs includes neither Israel's Arab citizens nor many members of the Orthodox sector. This reduction of effective human resources further increases the disproportion between population size and military power. Territory, Citizenship and Ethnonational Identity Most Jews live outside the State of Israel and within Israel there is a considerable non-Jewish minority of Palestinian Arabs. For the individual, this creates a problem of identity; for society, this creates a problem of defining its boundaries. Although the establishment of the state resolved some of the issues of collective identity, it, nonetheless, preserved some of the contradictions of bicommunal Mandatory Palestine. In particular the identity of the Israeli entity as a state and as an ethnonational community was not fully defined.27 Palestinian citizenship under the Mandate was described as "nothing but a legal formula devoid of moral meaning."28 The State of Israel, at least until 1967, was close to the model of an integral nation-state insofar as it had a clear-cut Jewish majority (eighty-five to ninety percent). The previously dormant problem of the symbolic meaning of citizenship as distinct from ethnonational identity intensified after 1967 with the extension of Israeli control over hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs. Thus, the issues of collective boundaries and identity became integrally linked to the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. Decisions about the ultimate disposition of the territories captured in 1967 therefore entail choices about the identity of Israeli collectivity and Palestinian-Arab identity. The partition of Mandatory Palestine and the exodus of most of the Arabs from the area under Jewish rule left ambiguous the status of the Arab minority in the State of Israel. At best, its connection to the state could be expressed in citizenship but not in ethnonational terms. The establishment of the state added a new dimension to the identity of its Arab residents, who, in addition to being Arabs or Palestinians, became Israeli citizens. Israel's Declaration of Independence established the state as

8


a "Jewish State in Eretz Israel" while upholding "full equality of social and political rights to all its citizens without regard to religion, race or sex."29 But for the Arab minority, the ethnonational and citizenship components of Israeli identity never became fully integrated, and this is also reflected in their position in the social structure. The nation-state is a modern concept that implies a high degree of congruence and harmony among territory, citizenship and ethnocultural community.30 Reality often falls short of this ideal and is eroded, for example, by ethnic diasporas. Thus in many cases ethnonational identity is not coextensive with the legal definition of citizenship.31 In principle, however, the criteria for citizenship are defined formally and are unrelated to persons' attitudes toward a particular social entity or to their cultural background. Criteria for ethnic or national membership are vaguer and based on primordial factors and/or cultural-historical consciousness.32 Although the boundaries of ethnonational membership are difficult to define, in many cases it engenders a stronger sense of group solidarity than does citizenship.33 In Israel ethnonational criteria lie at the base of the system of central national symbols that both express the collectivity's normative commitment to the Jewish people and determine the institutional response to the problem of national security anchored in the Arab-Israeli conflict. On its establishment, the State of Israel took over its anthem and flag from the Zionist movement and added the seven-branched candelabrum of Jewish religious tradition as the official symbol of the state.34 These express its link to the Jewish people as a historic cultural-national entity. The specific commitment to the Zionist conception that places the immigration and settlement of Jews in Eretz Israel at the center of the Jewish national revival is embodied in the Law of Return. This unique law grants privileges to Jews who wish to become Israelis but confers no privileges on Jewish citizens as against non-Jewish citizens.35 The most prominent application of ethnonational principles in the sphere of national security is the exemption of all Israeli Arabs (except for the Druse) from compulsory military service.36 The exemption of Israeli Arabs from the draft is not specified in law, but is implemented through the discretionary powers vested in the minister of defense.37 In contrast, civil rights—the formal equality of all citizens before the law—are defined in terms of citizenship. This fundamental principle of democracy is enunciated in Israel's Declaration of Independence and further elaborated in legislation. It is exemplified by universal suffrage in local and national elections, maintained even in the period 1949-66 when most Israeli Arabs lived in areas under military government.38 Primordial affiliation has a significant direct impact on public life in Israel through laws that govern marriage, divorce and personal status.39 These are linked to specific religious communities without granting preference to any particular community. As a result, although there is no separation of religion and state, neither is there a state religion.40 The territorial component of identity and membership that was clear-cut within the armistice lines of 1949 became blurred as a result of the Six Day War. After 1967 the population to be included within the territorial boundaries of the collec-


9

tivity differed according to the criterion used—sovereignty or military control. Moreover, the terms used to define these lands (e.g., "liberated" vs. "occupied" territories) reflected ideological preferences relating to their ultimate fate: whether they should remain under ethnonational Jewish control and be formally incorporated into the State of Israel or whether they should ultimately revert to Arab rule.41 A lack of congruence among citizenship, ethnicity and territory is not unique to Israel; only a few countries approach the ideal type of the nation-state. But Israel seems to be unusual in the range of patterns of partial congruence that it presents; these involve a multiplicity of communities and diasporas as well as vague definitions of religion, ethnicity and territory. From Diaspora Communities to an Emerging National Center Israel's existence as a national center alongside Diaspora communities is not the result of migration from the homeland, but the reverse. Modern Israel was created by ongoing immigration from widely scattered Jewish communities in the Diaspora. Israel perceives the Diaspora as its hinterland, a source of human, economic, political and moral support. Least problematic is the one-way flow of funds from the Diaspora to Israel, with the donor enjoying symbolic rewards or political gains in return. These funds have enabled Israel to finance the absorption of mass immigration, economic development and defense. This capital inflow has enabled Israel to invest in economic growth while responding to the demands of various pressure groups and simultaneously increasing the standard of living.42 This inflow has also had a direct political impact by blocking the emergence of pressures that might have threatened its democratic-pluralistic character. The political dimension of Israel-Diaspora relations is more complex and is manifested on occasion in conflicts of interest between Israel and Diaspora communities.43 For example, since the 1970s a conflict has existed between Israel and the American Jewish community over the immigration of Jews from the USSR. Although Israel sought to direct all the emigrants to Israel, even to the point of seeking to limit the Jewish and U.S. assistance given to those choosing other destinations, the American Jewish communal leadership has supported unrestricted freedom of choice and the provision of aid to all irrespective of their final destination. Israel's sense of responsibility for Jewish communities living under non-democratic regimes has also come into conflict with its wider diplomatic interests, as with the military regime in Argentina. Likewise, Israel's ties with South Africa, justified in terms of the need to protect the interests of South African Jewry and its ties to Israel, made it difficult to improve relations with many black African states.44 On another plane, Israel as a Jewish state was able to represent the Jewish people in international forums dealing with the consequences of the Holocaust. Thus Israel claimed reparations from Germany on the legal grounds that it had taken in hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors.45 The premises of Zionist ideology that, in large part, negate the Diaspora's status as an autonomous source of Jewish values, that deny its capacity to ensure Jewish survival and that regard Israel as the national-cultural center of the Jewish people create problems for the symbolic dimension of Israel-Diaspora relations. But such

10


tensions have waned somewhat over the years with the weakening among Israeli leaders of the doctrine of the "negation of the Diaspora." As a result, feelings of partnership and common destiny between Israel and the Diaspora have grown stronger.46 Moreover, the course of events has led to an expanded interaction between Israel and the Jewish communities that were not directly affected by the Second World War, particularly American Jewry.47 Formerly maintained mainly by the Zionist organizations, these ties have widened and deepened to encompass those previously identified as non-Zionist. The "negation of the Diaspora" was further muted by the waning of Israel's Utopian aspiration and its "normalization." The symbolic and demographic dimensions of Israel-Diaspora relations are interrelated. Israel's lack of success in attracting significant aliyah from the West has impaired its central symbolic role. Jews from Western countries who were free to come to live in Israel simply stayed away. 48 To make matters worse, a growing stream of Israeli emigrants began to head for the West, particularly North America. Emigration (yeridah, literally "going down" from Israel; the opposite of aliyah, "going up" to Israel) is more problematic for Israeli society than emigration is for other societies.49 Emigration, more so than a lack of immigration, undermines the fundamental goals of Zionism and seems to imply an accusation of failure. In a besieged Israel, emigration, therefore, came close to being regarded as desertion from the frontlines. The problem of emigration gained particular prominence in the 1970s and 1980s when immigration declined and the proportion of emigrants born and educated in Israel rose. The problem of immigration became most salient in the mid-1980s when the annual number of emigrants exceeded arrivals.so In some sense, however, the immigration to Israel of Jews from the Diaspora contributed to tensions surrounding the definition and boundaries of individual and collective Jewish identity. The controversy of "Who is a Jew?" came into sharper public focus because—for the purposes of implementing immigrants' rights under the Law of Return and in other legislation—the state employed criteria of Jewishness that did not necessarily conform to strictly traditional definitions. Amendments to the Law of Return that defined Jewishness for bureaucratic purposes did not settle the controversy, as they failed to resolve the question of the status in Israel of non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism performed abroad.51 Democracy, External Conflict and Social Cleavages Israel is further distinguished from the vast majority of new states by virtue of having consistently maintained a democratic regime, and this in the face of a rare combination of pressures: rapid demographic expansion, an ongoing security problem marked by several major wars and multiple deep social and political cleavages. The need to bear the onerous collective burdens of defense and mass immigration competed with particularistic group demands for the same scarce resources and placed Israel's democratic system under heavy cross-pressures. What is more, many of the new immigrants had no personal experience of democracy and no familiarity with the dominant political culture that originated in the Yishuv. 52 Long-term involvement in external conflicts poses serious dangers for democracy. The security threat places the military and defense establishment in a central


11

position. A large proportion of the population is either directly or indirectly involved in the defense effort, and the defense establishment enjoys a privileged status in shaping national policy in other spheres. The permeation of the civil sphere by defense concerns and personnel raises the specter of government controlled by "experts in violence"—what Harold Lasswell called a garrison state.53 Even if such a danger is averted, as it has been in Israel,54 the security sphere may, nevertheless, gain preponderant influence without direct control through manipulation of the civilian decision-making system. To guard against this the patterns of civil control of the military that are characteristic of democratic regimes at peace are insufficient; Israel requires special formal and informal arrangements to balance democracy and national security. Thus it has developed a unique model of politicalmilitary relationships, that of "a nation in arms." The partial militarization of the civilian sphere—caused by the expansion of the role of the military—is balanced by a partial civilianization of the defense sphere—arising particularly from penetration by an extensive system of army reserve duty and the linking of civilian and military elites in common social networks.55 The capacity of Israeli democracy to withstand these pressures has depended to a large extent on social solidarity and a broad political consensus, no easy task in a society riven since its inception by salient national, ethnic, religious, socioeconomic and ideological cleavages. These five sources of cleavage have weakened social solidarity by generating internal conflicts, some of which are intensified by being mutually reinforcing, as in the ethnic and socioeconomic cleavages and the religious and ideological cleavages. The fundamental national cleavage between Jew and Arab maintains a constant potential for intense conflict. Social conflicts and the frustrations of marginal groups have impeded the functioning of Israeli democracy to the point of exposing it to the danger of ungovernability by making it difficult for the system to mobilize material resources and collective normative commitments. Varied mechanisms have been employed to cope with these conflicts. The conflict arising from the overlap of ethnic resentment and socioeconomic inequality has been dealt with by allocating material resources through the public welfare and educational systems. This has provided a minimal standard of living for the lowest strata and slowed the growth of inequality that would have resulted from the free play of market forces, without basically changing the structure of stratification.56 The severe conflict potential of the religious cleavage was dealt with by accepting the principle of subcultural autonomy for both the modern Orthodox and the ultraOrthodox camps. Similar to European consociationalism, the system of subcultural autonomy granted group access to state resources.57 It was utilized in particular to create and maintain a state religious school system for the modern Orthodox, an independent school system for the ultra-Orthodox and other religious educational institutions for children, youth and adults. The particularistic needs of the religious communities were also met by the exemption of religious women and yeshivah students from military service. Another way of mitigating the religious-secular conflict besides subcultural autonomy was the adoption of the status quo as a guiding principle in resolving issues that concern state and religion. Ideological cleavages were handled mainly by negotiation and compromise: co-

12


operation between political parties in government coalitions, deferring the resolution of divisive fundamental questions—such as that of the constitution in the 1950s and of the ultimate status of the administered territories after 1967—and the adoption of ambiguous or vague legal definitions in various laws—such as occurred in the case of "Who is a Jew?"58 The Jewish-Arab cleavage and conflict were handled mainly by the development of mechanisms for the control and manipulation of Israeli Arabs, the most direct being military government. After its abolition in 1966, control mechanisms became more subtle and rested mainly on the internal security services. Mechanisms of direct control were resorted to again after 1967 with the establishment of military government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.59 Internal and External Transformations Relations between the center and the periphery of Israeli society underwent farreaching transformations within a relatively short time.60 The most significant transformation was the establishment of the state. The central institutions of the Yishuv, its political parties and other organizations, lacked the coercive power of a state. They rested on a broad base of voluntary commitment and were, therefore, highly effective instruments for resource mobilization and allocation. The inflow of resources from outside the system mitigated pressures on the center. This changed considerably with the establishment of the state. The system's need for resources grew tremendously at the very moment that the center's responsibility could no longer be confined to a broad coalition of movements and other political sub-centers that were partners in building the organized Yishuv.61 The government of the new state assumed direct responsibility for all citizens, including the masses of new arrivals as well as groups that were either marginal or that were opposed to the organized Yishuv. These groups were understandably less amenable to the Yishuv-era pattern of mobilization through voluntary frameworks. Nevertheless, the political system was able to adapt to the new conditions by developing new bureaucratic mechanisms of resource mobilization and allocation as well as by the large-scale import of resources that permitted simultaneously an effective—if somewhat paternalistic—absorption of immigrants, a rapid economic development and a steady rise in the standard of living.62 During the first stage of this transformation, two patterns of center-periphery relations operated simultaneously. Within the "first Israel," in general, the center had to offer more tangible rewards in order to maintain the same levels of participation, even though the older norms of participation still held and some groups still maintained their particularistic channels of access to the center. For the "second Israel," however, under the new rules of allocation and mobilization, the dependence of the newcomers on the absorption frameworks became the dominant mode of political mobilization.63 The immigrants' lack of resources compelled them to settle wherever national priorities—as defined by the authorities—required, largely in underdeveloped areas and border regions. Such initial integration required neither high motivation nor great rewards.64


13

Thus the "second Israel" was placed in a distinctly peripheral role. Not much was expected of it, but not much was given to it, either, compared to the benefits enjoyed by the "first Israel." State institutions did not deny the periphery a minimal standard of living or essential services, but these were furnished at a lower level than that achieved by the "first Israel." Newcomers were initially housed in transit camps of tin shacks or wooden huts and later in sub-standard housing projects, many of which rapidly deteriorated into slums.65 Although elementary education was provided for the children of the immigrants, underqualified teachers, crowded and poorly equipped classrooms and inappropriate curricula made it difficult to close the gaps in educational achievement and cultural background that differentiated many of the immigrants from the veteran population.66 Many newcomers were first employed in public works projects: when they eventually joined the regular labor force, they were usually in low-status and low-paying jobs.67 Thus there was a high correlation between new immigrant status and low socioeconomic status, lack of prestige and access to power. The patterns of absorption in the early 1950s, which in practice guaranteed that most immigrants would receive minimal standard housing, education and jobs, largely reflected the meager resources at the center's disposal. A relatively speedy move from transit camps into permanent housing was made possible by low housing standards. The transition from menial public works jobs to industrial labor was facilitated by the employment of the immigrants in the 1950s in labor-intensive enterprises such as textile plants rather than in capital-intensive enterprises.68 Agricultural settlement, too, was based on minimal investment per farmer.69 Thus, the absorption during the 1950s of masses of impoverished immigrants was both a humanitarian undertaking of unparalleled scope and speed as well as a source of relative deprivation that in later years erupted to plague the social and political system. Ironically, many of the roles filled by the newcomers were the embodiment of the pioneering spirit in the Yishuv and, as such, had been the source of general esteem. The immigrants, however, did not derive the same prestige or other benefits from these roles because they had been recruited bureaucratically, not voluntarily, and lacked commitment to pioneering ideologies.70 The political transformation associated with statehood highlighted the lack of compatibility between Yishuv patterns and the more formal and universalistic requirements of sovereign political power. To cope with it David Ben-Gurion forcefully advocated a statist approach to public affairs that was aimed at reducing, if not abolishing, the autonomy of the political movements that had performed quasigovernmental functions in the Yishuv. The new statist political norms were applied in the spheres of defense, employment and administration as well as partially in the educational system.71 But the particularistic political traditions of the pre-state days continued to exist with regard to health services, the two religious school systems and, most of all, in the primacy accorded to the interests of the political establishment over the rights of the individual. The old patterns also failed to meet new economic and settlement needs. The economic system of the Yishuv was heavily influenced by political and ideological

14


considerations to promote a "heroic economics"72 that often ignored criteria of economic viability. This was particularly true with regard to investment, the labor market and the land purchases that "redeemed" Eretz Israel.73 Some manifestations of the ' 'heroic economies'' such as the politically structured land market vanished with the establishment of the state, but others such as the protected labor market for Jewish workers simply changed complexion. The wage level after 1948 was no longer threatened by Arabs, but by unemployed new immigrants; but in contrast to the Arabs of the pre-state period, the new immigrants were members of the Histadrut and were paid out of the public purse, even when unemployed. Such control of the labor market prevented the depression of the wage levels of veteran workers and military government prevented undue competition from the Arab sector. Moreover, the tendency to continue investing in unviable enterprises in order to give primacy to economic expansion and job creation was facilitated by one-way transfers of capital. As a result, the economy that emerged required constant subsidies and heavy tariff protection that in time hampered progress toward economic independence.74 A second historic turning point for Israeli society that challenged existing norms and patterns was the Six Day War of 1967. While still in the throes of shaping a new society and building new institutions, Israel was once again obliged to confront the problems rooted in the national-communal conflict with the Palestinian Arabs that had been put in limbo in 1948. Although the War of Independence converted the struggle for supremacy in Palestine from a communal to an international conflict, the Six Day War reintroduced the communal dimension and exacerbated international relations. Less than a year after the abolition of military government in 1966 had appeared to indicate that communal conflict between Arabs and Jews had ceased to be a political and security problem, Israel was thrust into a new and more threatening Jewish-Arab conflict. The operative agreement on the territorial boundaries of the Zionist enterprise, established implicitly in 1948 but never grounded in a fundamental ideological consensus, now broke down. After the 1967 war, the ideological demands for the incorporation of the occupied territories into a Greater Israel, on the one hand, and for territorial compromise, on the other, again emerged in full force.75 Significantly, each of the political solutions advocated—annexation, the partial or full return of territory, functional compromise, the expulsion of the Arabs and the maintenance of the status quo—had different implications for the boundaries and identity of the collectivity.76 The renewed debate on these issues brought ideological polarization into the open, thus undermining the delicate and pragmatic modus vivendi that had enabled Arabs and Jews, secular and religious Jews and partisans of varying political persuasions to coexist in relative peace. This polarization worsened after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, aggravated by the international peace initiatives that followed that conflict.77 Increased ideological militancy and the termination of the political deadlock that had marked the relationship with the Arab states until late 1973 made it progressively more difficult to maintain political stability in Israel. A profound social change occurred in the labor market after 1967 as tens of thousands of workers from the administered territories took over many of the low-

15


status, low-paying jobs in Israel's economy. Political and governmental dualism developed: one population was governed by one set of laws, the other population, by another set. The territory under Israeli sovereignty was governed democratically, whereas the administered territories were ruled by a military government that left those subject to it without political rights. Finally, there were renewed security problems of protecting the daily life of civilians from the terrorist attacks and the violence that originated in the occupied territories. An Overburdened System The need to adjust to rapidly changing historical and social circumstances hampered Israeli institutions by introducing two kinds of functional incompatibility: that between sub-systems and the larger society and that between various sub-systems. Functional incompatibility of the first kind was present in the use of deficit financing to raise the standard of living, which made it more difficult to approach the elusive goal of economic independence. Likewise, social welfare policies aimed at improving the quality of life reduced the amount of resources available for stimulating economic growth. The most conspicuous contradiction occurred in the sphere of education and culture. A marked dissonance developed between the goal of the steady integration of the newcomers into a unitary cultural system and that of promoting the autonomy of ethnic subcultures within a pluralistic society in order to contain some of the social tensions generated by the prolonged integration process.78 Incompatibilities between sub-systems are either of the fundamental or technicalfunctional varieties. A prime example of fundamental contradiction is that between the Jewish-Zionist and civil-democratic identities of the State of Israel, examined earlier.79 A less critical example of the second variety is the functional contradiction between social and economic considerations in the shaping of economic policy. The use of wage incentives to increase output, for example, does not always square with the declared aim of reducing income gaps among groups. On occasion the incompatibilities between sub-systems are expressed as interest-group conflicts, between producers and consumers, employers and employees or the bureaucracy and its clients. Many of the functional problems of the Israeli political system stem from the fact that it is overburdened. There is a marked imbalance between the level of resources available and the multiplicity of specific goals.80 A system is overburdened when its capacity to mobilize instrumental resources and normative commitments lags behind the specific demands placed on the political center, thus making it difficult to deal simultaneously with the wide range of goals and needs on which there is consensus. Moshe Day an referred to this problem in the early 1970s as the difficulty of raising two banners at once, the "banner of security" and the "banner of social welfare."81 The problem of overburdening is manifested in many spheres of Israeli society. In the economic sphere, inflation and the balance of payments deficit reflect the failure to balance demands to raise living standards and social welfare benefits with the need to provide for adequate defense and promote economic growth. In the area

16


of security, it is expressed in terms of the high human and material costs exacted by wars and in the extensive periods of military duty imposed on army reserves. Politically, it is reflected in tendencies toward ungovernability that stem from an inability to meet contradictory political demands rooted in opposing fundamental ideological positions. Political polarization on the fundamental level that makes groups unwilling to accept the decisions of established political institutions militates against the regulation of political conflict by bargaining and compromise or by majority vote.82 Consequently, unresolved political conflicts will accumulate and the system will become increasingly overburdened. New national issues that cannot be dealt with on the basis of the center's past experience are another source of political overburdening. So, too, are government attempts to reduce sociocultural gaps between groups that are constantly caught in the dilemma of whether to concentrate resources on those best able to use them or to spread them widely and provide small benefits for the largest number.83 Because formal equality in resource allocation discriminates against the disadvantaged, reducing social gaps may require a proportionately larger investment in society's weakest elements. This, however, may result in the restriction of the opportunities of groups with elite potential whose ultimate achievements and contributions to society may be greater. The realization of collective ideological aspirations in Israel was dependent, to a large extent, on the capacity to cope with an overburdened system. The achievement of ambitious collective goals varies with the availability of resources and the degree of human commitment, particularly the willingness to defer gratification of individual wants. Pressures on limited resources may also be reduced by a low level of expectation from the center. The immigrants of the 1950s, for example, were prepared to endure much more in the tent camps and shantytowns than they and their children were in the more prosperous conditions of the late 1960s and the 1970s. By then, the willingness of the veteran settlers to endure hardship had also declined when compared to that of the Yishuv and the austerity of the early 1950s. Israeli reactions to war casualties provide another example. In the 1948 War of Independence, Israel lost about 1 percent of its population without a perceptible loss of morale, whereas a level of casualities of about .01 percent in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 became a major source of dissatisfaction.84 In the case of the Lebanon War, over which consensus had broken down, a casualty level one-fifth of that in 1973 aroused serious controversy. The problem of overburdening, which both impaired Israel's ability to fully carry out its collective tasks and limited the center's ability to respond fully to the demands of the periphery, did not undermine the basic stability of the political system for a number of reasons. Of prime significance was the importation of capital resources from abroad—donations by world Jewry, grants from the United States and reparations from West Germany—that permitted Israel to seek to achieve most of its collective goals while raising the standard of living.85 In short, the center could distribute more resources than it extracted from the periphery. The inflow of resources also encouraged an expansive orientation among political actors by making them aware that meeting group demands was not at the expense of other groups and that conflicting obligations could be undertaken simultaneously. Although re-


17

sources were limited, their distribution did not occur under conditions of a zero-sum game. The gap between the objective scarcity of resources and the subjective awareness of it was also widened by the government's policies of deficit financing by printing money. Such inflationary methods averted the feeling of extra burden that would have accompanied other means of financing. Moreover, indexing arrangements for salaries and savings neutralized much of the social impact of inflation and prevented the sharp fluctuations in income distribution that often accompany it. Political mechanisms were also used to reduce the impact of overburdening. For example, some of the pressure to reach a final resolution of fundamental ideological conflict was deflected pragmatically by ambiguous formulations, acceptance of inconsistencies and avoidance of substantive decisions on controversial issues. A prime example (already mentioned) is the decision in the early 1950s not to adopt a formal written constitution.86 Such an incremental approach to problem solving fit in well with the gradualist strategy of nation building that guided the ruling labor movement elite both before and after the establishment of the state. Although the supply of available resources in later years was greater than at any previous stage, owing to external aid and internal economic growth, the feeling of being overburdened became stronger in later years as a result of an erosion in society's willingness to sacrifice for collective goals except in periods of acute national emergency.87 Such a drop in the level of commitment represents a decline in the solidarity of Israeli society; it has occurred despite the increase in attachment to the center on the part of formerly separatist peripheral groups such as the ultraOrthodox Agudat Israel, the Communists and some parts of the Arab population. This centripetal process made little contribution to political integration because it was expressed more on the instrumental plane as a means to obtain greater material resources from the center than in an increase in unconditional normative commitment to the collectivity. This pattern spread to other groups and thereby undermined social solidarity. Nevertheless, the overall willingness to serve national goals remains higher in Israel than in most other democratic societies. The tax burden is without parallel: even more significant, the readiness to accept compulsory military service and subsequent reserve duty (and to volunteer for more demanding elite combat units) keeps men in uniform longer than in any other democratic country. At the same time, some political groups have increased their instrumental and normative involvement at the center—the most prominent is that of the younger generation within the religious Zionist sector.88 By the same token, the self-perception of their own centrality formerly held by some leading political movements has declined as a result of the transfer of power and the ensuing national ideological transformation that followed the 1977 defeat of Labour by the Likud. This is particularly so in the case of the kibbutz movement, which had regarded itself as a vanguard whose members stood ready to contribute to all collective efforts. The transformations brought about by the establishment of the state have not only broadened the scope of communications between center and periphery but have also changed the patterns of relationships between the political establishment and the citizenry. During the period of the Yishuv and in the early years of the state,

18


relations between the political center and its clients were mediated by parties and other sub-centers. The transfer of powers from these particularistic frameworks to the government, guided by universalistic principles, reduced the importance of the party-controlled sub-centers as mediating bodies. This development facilitated direct contact between citizens and the political establishment, but it also led to the atomization of the citizenry, which was converted from an organized public reliant on institutional channels for routine political activity into an amorphous mass available for populistic mobilization and manipulation by charismatic leaders.89 This whole process has had negative consequences for elites. Some of them occupied positions in the mediating bodies that were made redundant by the state. Moreover, the populistic political appeals and mobilization have had a disintegrating impact on social elites by undermining their status.90 Specific components of elite status such as education and cultural accomplishments have either been disregarded or rejected, thus creating conditions for low-status groups to play a more central role in the political arena. This, in turn, has contributed to the alienation of the civil service as well as the higher education and communication elites and, consequently, weakened their motivation to play an active role in preserving and creating cultural traditions. The differences in ethnic background and social status between the immigrants of the 1950s and the veteran population were originally perceived as a temporary condition. Moreover, political mobilization based on the exploitation of these differences was not possible initially owing to the total dependence of the immigrants on public frameworks for their absorption.91 Neither was the secular-religious conflict a source of great tension because of agreements between ruling elites to maintain the religious status quo. The cleavage along national lines found only minimal political expression, then, owing to the paralysis that affected the Israeli Arabs following their traumatic defeat in 1948 and the weakness of their political leadership.92 These conditions changed during the 1960s and 1970s, and the incipient conflicts of the 1950s gradually resurfaced. Politically active, new aspiring elites emerged: a militant leadership in the disadvantaged development towns and urban neighborhoods in which most of the immigrants of the 1950s were concentrated; a stratum of Arab intellectuals, who articulated a nationalist Arab political consciousness; and new religious elites, including militant young activists in the religious Zionist sector. The old elites lost their primacy as the source of ideological and cultural inspiration, and their capacity for ideological and cultural innovation declined as they became increasingly preoccupied with immediate practical problems.93 Moreover, ideological polarization increased after the Six Day War as the weakening Labour-led elite faced the emergent—and largely extremist—elites of the oppositionist right-wing and the religious sectors. These ideological militants based their appeal on ethnocentric symbols, with heavy emphasis on historic Jewish rights to ancestral lands, while tending to demonize Israel's enemies and to portray their political rivals as defeatists or worse.94 The articulation of group identities in terms of social cleavages and the re-

19


surgence of ideological conflicts over central national issues led to a gradual strengthening of the right wing of Israel's party system and eventually to the political upheaval of 1977 that ended the long period of Labour dominance. Nevertheless, this shift did not result in the rise of a single new dominant elite. Rather, the array of political forces was polarized into two large political camps of approximately equal strength, a trend reinforced by the 1984 elections when neither camp was strong enough to form a ruling coalition. Both, therefore, settled for joint rule in a grand coalition called the National Unity Government. Summary The development of Israeli society is, thus, a story of waning aspirations and partially fulfilled collective goals. A society with a small population in a small territory that assumed extensive collective tasks eventually found, perhaps not surprisingly, that some of them were beyond its reach. Indeed, Israel's social structure, cultural character and political climate have all been heavily influenced by the gap between collective goals and their realization. The difficulty of reducing this gap may be traced to a number of aspects of Israeli society that are not at all unique to it: a society that arose out of ideological impulses that generated both consensus and conflict; a new society without a uniform cultural or national tradition; a society in which the components of territory, citizenship and ethnicity are only partially congruent; a society created by waves of immigration from Diaspora communities to a center-in-the-making; a society that maintains a democratic regime despite pressures created by a divisive cleavage structure, by national tasks of vast scope and by a protracted and violent external conflict. These characteristics point to several alternative paths for Israel's future development: an Israel in the image of Athens or Sparta; an Israel that stresses the ethnonational elements in its collective identity or the civil-universalistic elements; a Greater Israel with a broader territory and a more ethnically heterogeneous population or a smaller and more nationally homogeneous Israel; an Israel that gives priority in resource allocation to collective tasks or a regime that responds mainly to the particularistic demands of pressure groups; an Israel that seeks to blur the cultural distinctions among its immigrant groups or one that perpetuates cultural-communal divisions. For some of these alternatives, the dominant trends are already clear; for others, the choices have yet to be made. The Israeli public and its elites are divided in their responses to the ideological and practical political dilemmas inherent in these fundamental choices. Yet, even the existence at any given time of a consensus on a particular choice is no guarantee that it will be maintained in the future in the face of changing internal and external constraints. Israel is particularly sensitive to external developments that may have far-reaching, internal repercussions. Thus, although the identification of the dominant trends in Israeli society today is a necessary condition for making satisfactory projections about its future development, it is by no means sufficient.

20


Notes 1. On Zionism as an ideological and social movement, see Ben Halpern, The Idea of the Jewish State (Cambridge, Mass.: 1961); Arthur Hertzberg (ed.), The Zionist Idea—A Historical Analysis and Reader (New York: 1970); Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Transformation of Israeli Society (London: 1985), chap. 5; idem, The Absorption of Immigrants (London: 1954); Shlomo Avineri, Hara'ayon haziyoni ligvanav (Tel-Aviv: 1980). For other ideological and political solutions—assimilation, cultural autonomy in the Diaspora and territorialism—see Shmuel Ettinger, Toldot yisrael ba'et hahadashah, pt. 2, chaps. 4-5; Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917 (Cambridge: 1981). 2. Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, The Origins of the Israeli Polity: Palestine Under the Mandate (Chicago and London: 1978), chap. 8. 3. The area of Israel following the 1949 armistice agreement was 20,770 square kilometers. The area controlled by Israel after 1967 increased to 89,959 square kilometers. The area of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights (the Sinai Peninsula, returned to Egypt according to the 1979 peace treaty, is not included here) is 7,391 square kilometers. The population of Israel on the eve of the 1967 war was 2.8 million. The population of the occupied territories in 1967 was 603,400 in the West Bank and 394,000 in the Gaza Strip and the northern part of the Sinai. See Central Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Abstract of Israel, No. 20 (1969), 3, 20; Census of Population 1967 (1968), 9, 15. 4. Horowitz and Lissak, Origins, chap. 6; Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Israeli Society (New York: 1967), chap. 3; Ettinger, Toldot yisrael pt. 2, chap. 6. 5. David Ben-Gurion, "Yihud veye'ud"; Tom Segev, 7949: The First Israelis (New York: 1986). 6. For the ideological-political debate on the future of the territories, see, for example, Yehoshafat Harkabi, Hakhra'ot goraliot (Tel-Aviv: 1986), chap. 1; Yossi Beilin, Mehiro shel ihud (Tel-Aviv: 1985); Arieh Eliav, Erez hazvi (Tel-Aviv: 1972); Zvi Ra'anan, Gush emunim (Tel-Aviv: 1980), 75-101. 7. Horowitz and Lissak, Origins, chap. 6. 8. Eisenstadt, Transformation, chaps. 15-18. 9. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Revolution and the Transformation of Societies, a Comparative Study of Civilizations (New York: 1978), chap. 8; Alex Inkeles, Social Change in Soviet Russia (Cambridge, Mass.: 1968), chaps. 1-3. 10. On institution building in the Yishuv, see Horowitz and Lissak, Origins, chaps. 2, 4, 7. 11. Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties (Glencoe: 1960). 12. Benjamin Akzin and Yehezkel Dror, Israel: High-Pressure Planning (Syracuse: 1966), 7-14; Natan Yanai, Ker'a bazameret (Tel-Aviv: 1969), 77-140. 13. Amos Oz, Bear hatekhelet ha'azah (Tel-Aviv: 1979), 92. 14. For a discussion of this phenomenon, see Edward Shils, "Comparative Study of New Nations," in Clifford Geertz (ed.), Old Societies and New States (London: 1963), 126. 15. Eisenstadt, Israeli Society, 3-5. 16. Shlomo Deshen and Moshe Shokeid (eds.), Yehudei hamizrah (Tel-Aviv: 1984), 11-26; Harvey E. Goldberg, "Historical and Cultural Dimensions of Ethnic Phenomena in Israel," in Alex Weingrod (ed.), Studies in Israeli Ethnicity: After the Ingathering (New York: 1985), 179-200; Sammy Smooha, Israel: Pluralism and Conflict (London and Henley: 1978); Menahem Friedman, Hevrah vedat: haortodoksiyah halo-ziyonit beerez yisrael (Jerusalem: 1977), chaps. 2-3. 17. Eisenstadt, Absorption of Immigrants, chaps. 4-6; Rivka Bar-Yoscf, "The Moroccans: Background to the Problem," in Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Rivka Bar-Yosef and Chaim Adler (eds.), Integration and Development in Israel (Jerusalem: 1970), 419-428; Alex Weingrod, "Yahadut moroko bema'avar," Megamot 10 (1960), 193-208.


21

18. Moshe Lissak, Social Mobility in Israeli Society (Jerusalem: 1969), chap. 5; Smooha, Pluralism, chap. 7; Hannah Herzog, "Ethnicity as a Negotiated Issue in the Israeli Political Order: The 'Ethnic Lists' to the Delegates Assembly and the Knesset (19201977)," in Weingrod, After the Ingathering, 159-178; Yohanan Peres, "Horizontal Integration and Vertical Differentiation Among Jewish Ethnicities in Israel," in Weingrod, After the Ingathering, 39-56. 19. Moshe Lissak, "Political-Social Map Overlap," The Jerusalem Quarterly 38 (1986), 28-42. 20. Poless, "Interakziah historit o 'hit'orerut datit,' " Ha'aretz, 10 December 1957; Uri Simon, Hatoda'ah hayisraelit-yehudit—mifneh bahinukh ha'ivri? 21. This included the heightened popularity of previously marginal religious expressions such as folk medicine and personality cults surrounding pious religious figures. See, for example, Moshe Shokeid and Shlomo Deshen, Dor hatmurah (Jerusalem: 1977), chap. 9; Yoram Bilu, "Refuah masortit bekerev yozei moroko," in Deshen and Shokeid, Dor hatmurah. 22. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, "Traditional and Modern Social Values and Economic Development," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 305 (1956), 145-156; idem, "Some New Looks at the Problem of Relations Between Traditional Societies and Modernization," Economic Development and Cultural Change 16, no. 3 (1968), 436-450; Moshe Lissak, Military Roles in Modernization: Civil-Military Relations in Thailand and Burma (Beverly Hills and London: 1976), chap. 2; Emanuel Sivan, Kanaei haislam (Tel-Aviv: 1985). 23. See Statistical Abstract of Israel No. 36 (1985), 32. 24. Avner Shalev, "The Arms Race in the Middle East in the 1980s," in Zvi Lanir (ed.), Israeli Security Planning in the 1980s—Its Politics and Economics (Tel-Aviv: 1985), 15-30; International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 1985-1986 (London: 1985), 77. 25. Shlomo Aronson, Conflict and Bargaining in the Middle East (Baltimore: 1978), 25-54; Yak Evron, "Israel and the Atom: The Uses and Misuses of Ambiguity, 19571967," Orbis 17, no. 4 (1974), 1326-1343; Shai Feldman, Israel's Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York: 1982). 26. The sum total of U.S. foreign aid since the end of the Second World War is $250 billion. Through 1984 Israel had received about ten percent of this total (about $25 billion). See Asaf Razin, 'Al hadevash veha'okez—hashpa'at hasiyu'a haamerikayi, in Zvi Ofer and Avi Kober (eds.), Mehir ha'ozmah (Tel-Aviv: 1984), 48; N. Hassid and Y. Leser, "Habitahon veha'ugah haleumit," in Ofer and Kober, Mehir ha'ozmah, 33-47. 27. Baruch Kimmerling, "Between the Primordial and the Civil Definitions of the Collective Identity: Eretz Israel or the State of Israel," in Erik Cohen, Moshe Lissak and Uri Almagor (eds.), Comparative Social Dynamics—Essays in Honor ofS. N. Eisenstadt (Boulder and London: 1985), 263-283; Erik Cohen, "Ethnicity and Legitimation in Contemporary Israel," The Jerusalem Quarterly 28 (1983), 111-124; Simon N. Herman, Israelis and Jews: The Continuity of Identity (New York: 1970); Sammy Smooha, "Mediniut kayemet vealternativit klapei ha'aravim beyisrael," Megamot 26, no. 1 (1980), 7-36. 28. Horowitz and Lissak, Origins, 1. 29. The Declaration of Independence has been published in State of Israel, 'Iton rasmi [Official Gazette], no. 1, 1948. 30. Walker Connor, "The Politics of Ethno-nationalism," Journal of International Affairs 27, no. 1 (1973), 1-21; Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (Cambridge, Mass.: 1953), chap. 2; Clifford Geertz, "The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in New Nations," in Geertz, Old Societies, 105-157. 31. Gabriel Sheffer, "A New Field of Study: Modern Diasporas in International Politics," in Gabriel Sheffer (ed.), Modern Diasporas in International Politics (London: 1986), 1-16; Walker Connor, "The Impact of Homelands upon Diasporas," in Sheffer, Modern Diasporas, 16-46.

22


32. On primordial sentiments, see Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: 1973), 259-267. 33. Geertz: "Integrative Revolution." 34. See State of Israel, Sefer hahukim [The Laws of Israel], 1949, 37. 35. Ibid., 1950, 174. The law was amended twice, in 1954 and 1970. See Sefer hahukim, 1954, 28; 1970, 34. 36. Gabriel Ben-Dor, "The Military in the Politics of Integration and Innovation: The Case of the Druse Minority in Israel," Journal of Asian and African Studies 9, no. 3 (1973), 339-370. 37. Sefer hahukim, 1976, 107. 38. See "Basic Law—The Knesset," Art. 5, in Sefer hahukim, 1958, 69. 39. The legal origin of religious jurisdiction in matters of personal status can be traced to the Mandatory period. See "The Palestine Order in Council 1922," Drayton, Laws of Palestine vol. 3, 2569. The Israeli legislation made only a few changes in this established tradition. The Israeli laws applying to jurisdiction in matters of personal status of Jews are the "Jurisdiction of Rabbinical Courts Law" and the "Law of Rabbinical Courts Judges [dayanim]," see Sefer hahukim, 1961, 116; with regard to the Druse, see "The Law of Druse Courts," Sefer hahukim, 1964, 115. The law that applies to Christians is still the Mandatory law. 40. Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel (Berkeley: 1983); Amnon Rubinstein, Hamishpat hakonstituzyoni shel medinat yisrael (Jerusalem: 1974), 133-162. 41. Kimmerling, "Collective Identity." 42. David Horowitz, The Enigma of Economic Growth: A Case Study of Israel (New York: 1972), chaps. 3-4; Nadav Halevi and Ruth Klinov, The Economic Development of Israel (New York: 1968), chaps. 2, 10; Hayim Barkai, Yemei habereishit shel hameshek hayisraeli (Jerusalem: 1983), chap. 4. 43. Charles S. Liebman, "In Search of Status: The Israeli Government and the Zionist Movement," Forum 28-29 (1978), 38-56; Gabriel Sheffer, "The Uncertain Future of American Jewry—Israel Relations," The Jewish Quarterly 32 (1984), 65-80; Eisenstadt, Transformation, chap. 16. 44. Gideon Shimoni, Jews and Zionism: The South African Experience, 1910-1967 (Oxford: 1980). 45. Pinhas E. Shinar, Be'ol korakh uregashot, bishlihut hamedinah: yahasei yisraelgermaniah 1950-1966 (Jerusalem: 1967), 28-42. 46. Eisenstadt, Transformation, 476-488. 47. Steven M. Cohen, Attitudes of American Jews Toward Israel and Israelis, Institute of American Jewish-Israeli Relations, American Jewish Committee, September 1983; Sheffer, "Uncertain Future"; Eisenstadt, Transformation, chap. 16. 48. Sergio DellaPergola, "Aliya and Other Jewish Migrations: Toward an Integrated Perspective," in Uziel Oscar Schmelz and Gad Nathan (eds.), Studies in the Population of Israel in Honor of Roberto Bachi. Scripta Hierosolymitana 30 (1986), 172-209; Gershom Schocken, "Mabat hadash 'al haziyonut: hazlahah o kishalon?" Ha'aretz, 10 September 1980. 49. DellaPergola, "Aliya"; Zev Rabi, "350 elef ish yardu meaz kom hamedinah," Ha'aretz, 1 November 1983; idem, "Hayeridah mehaarez," Reva'on lekalkalah 99 (1978), 348-358. 50. DellaPergola, "Aliya." 51. Seen. 35. 52. Horowitz and Lissak, Origins, 200-206. 53. Harold Lasswell, "The Garrison State," American Journal of Sociology 46, no. 4 (1941), 455-462. 54. Moshe Lissak, "Paradoxes of Israeli Civil-Military Relations," in Moshe Lissak (ed.), Israeli Society and Its Defense Establishment (London: 1984), 1-12; Yoram Peri,


23

Between Battles and Ballots. The Israeli Military in Politics (Cambridge: 1983); Dan Horowitz, "The Israel Defense Forces: A Civilianized Military in a Partially Militarized Society," in R. Kolkowicz and Andrzej Korbonski (eds.), Soldiers, Peasants and Bureaucrats (London: 1982), 77-105; Dan Horowitz and Baruch Kimmerling, "Some Social Implications of Military Service and the Reserve System in Israel," Archives europeenes de sociologie 15 (1974), 262-276; Baruch Kimmerling, "Determination of the Boundaries and Frameworks of Conscription: Two Dimensions of Civil-Military Relations in Israel," Studies in Comparative International Development 14, no. 1 (1979), 22-41. 55. Moshe Lissak, "Boundaries and Institutional Linkages Between Elites: Some Illustrations from Civil-Military Relations in Israel," in Gwynn Moore (ed.), Research in Politics and Society, vol. 1, Studies of the Structure of National Elite Groups (1985), 129148; Dan Horowitz, "Israel Defense Forces"; Peri, Battles and Ballots. 56. Jack Habib, "Halukat hahakhnasot mehadash beemza'ut habituah haleumi," Bitahon soziali 9-10 (1975), 87-114; Avraham Doron, Nirah Shamai and Yossi Tamir, "Mediniyut havtahat hakhnasah menekudat reiut hamishpahah—mehkar mashveh shel shemoneh arazot," Bitahon soziali 24 (1983), 56-76. 57. For this concept see, for example, Hans Daalder, "The Consociational Democracy Theme," World Politics 26, no. 4 (1974), 604-627; Arend Lijphart, "Consociational Democracy," World Politics 21, no. 2 (1969), 207-225. 58. Itzhak Galnoor, Steering the Polity: Communication and Politics in Israel (Beverly Hills: 1982), chap. 8; Daniel Shimshoni, Israeli Democracy (New York: 1982), 53-97; Horowitz and Lissak, Origins, chap. 8. 59. Shlomo Gazit, The Stick and the Carrot: The Israeli Administration of Judea and Samaria (Tel-Aviv: 1985). 60. Edward Shils, Center and Periphery—Essays in Macrosociology (Chicago and London: 1975), 3-16. 61. For the concept of sub-center, see Horowitz and Lissak, Origins, 47-50. 62. Elihu Katz and S. N. Eisenstadt, "Some Sociological Observations on the Response of Israeli Organizations to New Immigrants," Administrative Science Quarterly 5 (1960), 113-133. 63. Shlomo Worm (ed.), Giora Josephtal—hayav ufo'alo (Tel-Aviv: 1963), 93; Horowitz and Lissak, Origins, 200-206; Divrei haknesset [Knesset Record], 1 September 1955, 54; Yehuda Grinker, 'Aliyatam shelyehudei haatlas (Tel-Aviv: 1973), 77-96; Eliezer DonYehiya, Shituf vekonflikt bein mahanot politiim (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977), 682-689, 756-760. 64. Erik Cohen, "Development Towns—The Social Dynamics of Planned Urban Communities in Israel," in Eisenstadt, Bar-Yosef and Adler, Integration and Development, 587617. 65. Devorah Bernstein, "Hama'abarot beshenot hahamishim," Mahbarot lemehkar ulebikoretS (1980), 5-48; Worm, Giora Josephtal, 112-113. 66. Chaim Adler, "Mekomo shel hahinukh bemizug 'edot beyisrael," in S. N. Eisenstadt and A. Zloczower (eds.), Mizug galuyot (Jerusalem: 1969), and Moshe Smilanski, "Habehinah hahevratit shel mivhan hahinukh beyisrael," Megamot 8 (1957). 67. Halevi and Klinov, Economic Development, chap. 5; Barkai, Hameshek, 45-48. 68. Barkai, Hameshek, 45-54. 69. Hayim Halperin and Dov Yaron, Moshavei 'olim (Jerusalem: 1951), chap. 8. 70. On the denial of the prestigious title "pioneers" to the immigrants of the 1950s, see Gadi Yatziv, Hadevarim besefat libam (Tel-Aviv: 1986), 160-166. 71. Horowitz and Lissak, Origins, chap. 8. 72. Chaim Arlosorov, Ketavim nivharim (Tel-Aviv: 1958), 39. 73. Anita Shapira, Hama'avak hanikhzav (Tel-Aviv: 1977), 46-52; Z. Sussman, Pa'ar veshivyon bahistadrut (Tel-Aviv: 1974), chap. 3; Baruch Kimmerling, Zionism and Territory, the Socio-territorial Dimensions of Zionist Politics (Berkeley: 1983), 117-127. 74. Halevi and Klinov, Economic Development, chap. 10.

24


75. See n. 6. 76. Dan Horowitz, "The Impact of Occupation on Israeli Society," The Jerusalem Quarterly 43 (1987), 21-36. 77. See n. 6. 78. Nissim Yosha, "Halakhah uma'aseh beshiluv moreshet yahadut hamizrah behinukh vetarbut," Shevet ve'am 29 (1980), 340-349. 79. Kimmerling, "Collective Identity"; Erik Cohen, "Ethnicity and Legitimation." 80. We prefer the term "overburden" to "overload" in order to avoid confusion with the technical meaning of overload in communications theory: see Karl W. Deutsch, The Nerves of Government (New York: 1966), 64, 137, 162. 81. Indeed, Dayan had expressed the same idea in the late 1950s. See Avraham Schweitzer, "Moshe Dayan—bein manhigut lebedidut," Ha'aretz, 12 February 1958. 82. Dani Rubinstein, Mi lashem eilai: gush emunim (Tel-Aviv: 1982), 65-69; Gideon Aran, Erez yisrael bein dat upolitikah (Jerusalem: 1985); Ehud Sprinzak, Ish hayashar be'einav: iligalism bahevrah hayisraelit (Tel-Aviv: 1986), chap. 7. 83. Chaim Adler, "Mekomo shel hahinukh bemizug 'edot beyisrael." 84. For the sensitivity to casualities, see Baruch Kimmerling, The Interrupted System: Israeli Civilians in War and Routine Times (New Brunswick and Oxford: 1985), 149-153. 85. Halevi and Klinov, Economic Development, chap. 6; David Horowitz, Enigma, chap. 4. 86. Shevah Weiss, Haknesset (Tel-Aviv: 1977), 17-27; Sprinzak, Ish hayashar, 6375; Yehoshua Freudenheim, Government in Israel (Jerusalem: 1960), 15-63; Amnon Rubinstein, Hamishpat hakonstituzyoni, 27-28; Moshe Landau, in Hapraklit 27 (1971), 3041. 87. Kimmerling, Interrupted System, 119-146. 88. Raanan, Gush emunim, chap. 2. 89. Nurit Graetz, "Me'atim mul rabim," Siman kriah 16-37 (1983), 106-126; Yonatan Shapira, Politikah 10-11 (1986), 30-33. 90. G. Lowell Field and John Higley, Elitism (London: 1980), chaps. 1, 3. 91. See n. 63. 92. Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State—Israel's Control of a National Minority (Austin: 1980), 47-51; Jacob M. Landau, The Arabs in Israel: A Political Study (London: 1969), 22-38. 93. Myron J. Aronoff, Power and Ritual in the Israel Labor Party: A Study in Political Anthropology (Amsterdam: 1977), chap. 5. 94. Graetz, "Me'atim," 106-126.

The Integration Processes of Eastern Jews in Israeli Society, 1948-1988 Pnina Morag-Talmon (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

The mass immigration that brought populations to Israel from five continents, dozens of countries and hundreds of localities is undoubtedly one of the most important features of Israeli society. It is still too early to attempt a definitive understanding of the impact of this ongoing process. My analysis, therefore, will indicate some major directions and trends in the dynamics of change. The process of absorption into Israeli society was guided by two main objectives: integrating the exiles (mizug galuyot) along melting-pot lines and achieving a social equality that would reduce class differences. Neither of these two goals has been fully realized. The melting pot—that is, synthesizing the specific cultural and structural elements of the members of the various exiles to create a uniformity— was not, in fact, realizable; and the process of absorption produced institutionalized economic, educational and social gaps in the stratification system of Israeli society. Despite comprehensive social welfare policies, integration was easier for those whose primary socioeconomic characteristics—family size, professional training and previous exposure to modern conditions—put them in an advantageous position. The result has been the ethnic stratification of Israeli society. Eastern1 immigrants and their children generally tend to occupy the lower economic and educational ranks, whereas Westerners2 tend to occupy the higher ranks. The same pattern is repeated with regard to geographic distribution. Depressed neighborhoods, small outlying cities and the economically unsuccessful development towns are populated to a large extent by Eastern immigrants and their children.3 Such data have given rise to the popular view that equates ethnic origin with socioeconomic status and to a general perception of an Israeli society afflicted by gross inequalities and social gaps that seem likely to become permanent.4 In fact, one should properly distinguish among the Eastern immigrants according to their various countries of origin, and many studies have been careful to do this. Most of the statistical data, however, are consolidated; in this discussion, therefore, the emphasis will, of necessity, focus on those trends common to immigrants from Eastern countries as a whole. Because of the prominence of the polarization process, most of the research relating to immigrant absorption and the ethnic mosaic that constitutes Israeli soci25

26

Pnina Morag-Talmon

ety focused on differences and gaps.5 Although some attention was paid to the processes of social integration,6 mainly at the beginning of the period of mass aliyah, in order to determine the components and to devise acceptable scales of integration, sociologists still need to clarify further such concepts as "melting pot" and acculturation. The equation of stratification gaps with ethnic background is one of the main problems confronting Israeli society. This discussion neither intends to minimize the importance of such class polarization nor to justify it. Its purpose is mainly to indicate the dynamic process of development that Israeli society is undergoing, in consequence of which breakthroughs have been generated and paths for integration created, sometimes even enabling Eastern immigrants to attain a dominant position in some areas of society. Complete integration has not yet been achieved, but the current processes have blurred the polarized picture of extreme ethnic gaps, and it is these changes that provide the focus for this discussion. Employment and Education In the upper and lower strata of the occupational and educational hierarchies, there are significant concentrations of individuals of different ethnic origins. Table 1 shows that in the middle strata (i.e., in middle- or lower-middle-class jobs that involve clerical work, sales and public services) the distribution of Israeli-born employees is similar to the distribution of those of Eastern and Western origin (Israel: 21.2 percent, 7.1 percent, 12.5 percent; Asia-Africa: 23.7 percent, 7 percent, 13.8 percent; Europe-America: 19.7 percent, 7.3 percent, 6.5 percent). Similarly, the educational figures in Table 2 indicate that at the intermediate level of 11 to 12 years of education, the distribution for these groups is similar (Israel: 43.6 percent; Asia-Africa: 47.2 percent; Europe-America: 38.7 percent). This average level of education is generally sufficient preparation for middle-class employment; in this sense there is a certain degree of overlap between the occupational and educational elements in determining social placement. Perhaps even more significant is the growing concentration of Easterners in small businesses, mainly manufacturing, trade and construction. In 1961, of the Ashkenazim, 25 percent were self-employed as opposed to 16 percent of the Easterners. In 1972 the proportion was 23 percent Ashkenazim as opposed to 17 percent Easterners; and in 1981 the distribution was identical, 19 percent Ashkenazim and 19 percent Easterners. These similarities in income and education provide a common background for housing, dress, cultural consumption and patterns of leisure activity.7 It is at this level that the majority of inter-ethnic marriages, currently averaging 24 percent of all marriages in Israel, are concentrated.8 Not enough research has been done, however, to determine whether social participation and activity at these levels crosses ethnic boundaries. The economic and educational spheres have provided openings for some Easterners. Their achievements in these areas were attained mainly through the support and direction of the establishment. The educational and academic frameworks were expanded due to intensive initiatives by the political leadership, which in effect contributed to the increased placement in middle-level employment. Actually, pro-

27

The Integration Processes of Eastern Jews in Israeli Society, 1948-1988 Table 1. Jewish Employed Persons by Occupation, Sex and Place of Birth, 1985 Israel-born Born ii AsiaAfrica

Father born in

Total

EuropeAmerica

AsiaAfrica

Israel

Total

Grand Total

3.2

15.2

2.9

8.7

9.0

9.2

10.0

24.3

12.7

20.2

18.8

16.0

4.8

8.4

2.9

6.2

5.7

5.8

15.8

19.7

23.7

21.2

21.5

19.4

8.8

7.3

7.0

7.1

7.1

7.7

19.9

6.5

13.8

12.5

10.6

12.6

4.2

5.7

4.6

8.3

5.8

4.6

Skilled workers (industry, mining, building, transport and others)

29.4

12.3

29.5

14.6

19.9

22.3

Other workers in industry, transport, building and unskilled workers

3.8

(0.6)

2.9

(1.3)

1.7

2.4

Occupation Scientific/academic Professionals and professional-related Administrators/managers Clerical and clericalrelated Sales Service Agriculture

Source: Statistical Abstract of Israel, 1986 (Jerusalem: 1986), 310.1 1.

gress in self-employment also came about, to a large extent, as a result of the social development generated by the Six Day War, which added a stratum of Arab manual laborers from the Golan Heights, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. In this case the entrepreneurial capabilities of the Easterners benefited considerably from the intervention of an economic factor. The Political Sphere Although there were only limited avenues of mobility open to Easterners in the economic and educational spheres, many options and paths of mobility emerged in the political area; in many ways this fact constitutes one of the most significant aspects of change in Israeli society as a whole. The Easterners benefited from an important advantage in the realm of politics, namely their numbers. Of the 3,517,200 Jewish residents in 1985 in the state, 43 percent were Easterners, 35 percent came from Europe and America, and 18.4 percent were Israeli-born.9 This factor magnified their electoral impact and encouraged the political parties to woo Eastern votes openly. In the first decades overtly ideological or programmatic appeals did not play a

Table 2. Continent of Birth and Period of Immigration

Persons Aged 14 and Over by Years of Schooling and Place of Birth (Jews), 1 985 Total

Years of Schooling Median

1

6+

13-15

11-12

9-10

5-8

1-4

0

Percentages

Thousands

413.9

431.4

77.3

124.6

—

2.511.3

Total — thousands

—

254.8

352.8

836.0

— percentages

11.5

10.2

14.2

33.6

16.6

17.3

3.1

5.0

100.0

—

Israel-total

12.0

10.4

16.7

43.7

19.6

8.7

0.4

0.5

100.0

1.168.9

Father born in Israel

12.0

10.1

17.7

43.6

19.9

7.9

0.4

0.4

100.0

1.168.9

Asia- Africa

11.5

3.3

10.4

47.2

25.2

12.8

0.6

0.5

100.0

570.2

Europe-America

12.8

20.9

24.9

38.7

11.5

3.4

0.2

0.4

100.0

394.4

8.9

3.9

7.3

23.5

14.6

27.5

5.7

17.5

100.0

608.3

Asia- Africa-total

Source: Adapted from Central Bureau of Stalls tics , Statistical Abstract of IsrtTel 1986, (Jerussalem: 1986), 567 .

The Integration Processes of Eastern Jews in Israeli Society, 1948-1988

29

dominant role in vote recruitment among Eastern Jews. Votes were more usually won through a system of patronage that assured benefits or access to influence. Through the party key, the Eastern electoral pie was divided among the factions whose well-oiled party machines got out the vote at election time. During these years, it was common to make token political appointments among Easterners. Patronage was distributed both as a reward for mobilizing voters and in order to co-opt the Eastern immigrants into the Zionist enterprise. On some occasions the Easterners themselves also formed tiny parties just prior to national elections, but few of these survived their first election campaign and often their members subsequently joined existing parties.10 The political system played a significant socializing role. Eastern immigrants learned to distinguish political platforms and ideological differences, and they internalized the rules of the political game. In 1977 Israeli politics underwent a fundamental change with the Likud's accession to power, made possible only by the support it received from the Eastern voters. If political scientists are agreed on the impact of the voting patterns of Easterners, they are divided over their explanation of this shift in party support. Some have argued that the 1977 vote was a protest vote—a vote against the former (Labour party) establishment, which was blamed for past economic and cultural discrimination.11 Others contend that the Eastern communities were mainly attracted by the foreign policies of the right.12 Furthermore, some of the appeal of the right lay in its nationalist-religious overtones and its stress on national solidarity, in sharp contrast to the perception that the left's class-based commitments were divisive. The personal leadership style of Menachem Begin that accorded the right an aura of ceremonious dignity and charisma was found to be particularly appealing to Easterners. Some historians have pointed out that there is nothing new in this swing to the right in the 1970s, and that it constitutes a return to the traditional political pattern of the Eastern communities in pre-state Palestine.13 To grasp the nature of the change, however, it must be recognized that the contemporary political significance of Easterners in Israel goes beyond the impact of the ballot box. Over time Eastern immigrants have been effective in finding innovative routes to political involvement through local politics. In medium-sized and small cities and especially in development towns, local leaderships have developed their own distinctive style of political activism in bringing the economic and social concerns of the periphery to the attention of the national leadership. Several of these local leaders managed to propel themselves into the political center while still maintaining their grass roots constituencies, thereby extending the range of the political avenue of mobility. Others remained active at the municipal level, maximizing the advantages of the local power base.14 Given the country's small size, the general public awareness of social issues and the government's egalitarian and integrative social welfare policies, the local leaders did not remain on the political periphery. Although not formally part of the political center, they served, nevertheless, to connect the periphery with the center. Another political area that enabled the Easterners to make themselves heard and raise the banner of societal discrimination were the protest movements that provided alternative channels for political leadership and mobilization, especially among the younger generation of the Moroccan community. The Black Panthers in particular

30

Pnina Morag-Talmon

stimulated a heightened public consciousness of the social gap, and this was instrumental in giving rise to government programs. Such protest movements, however, faded away as official responsiveness increased and protest leaders became integrated into mainstream politics.15 Even so, their main and lasting contribution consisted of creating a consciousness of the social gap; thus this protest became part of the society's system of symbols. All of these avenues of political mobility had the practical effect of increasing the involvement of Eastern activists in establishment circles, with the result that it is now possible to measure the achievement of Easterners not only in the approach paths and the secondary levels of political activity but within the political elite as well. Of particular note was the increase in the number of Easterners in the Knesset from twelve members in 1977 to thirty-one members in 1984 and the significant rise in the number of ministers of Eastern origin (two ministers in 1977 compared with eight in 1984). Similarly, there has been an increase in recent years in the number of Easterners holding key executive positions, for example, secretary-general of the Histadrut, secretary-general of the moshav movement, and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff (from 1983 to 1987). Such a degree of political integration at the highest level is one of the most significant achievements of the Easterners in the absorption process. Besides contributing to the Easterners' own self-image, this has concomitantly contributed to the political stability and continuity of the society as a whole. The Cultural Sphere The Zionist movement's idea of national rebirth rejected all Diaspora (galut) attachments and "foreign" traits. As such, at the value level, it accorded no legitimacy to ethnic distinctiveness outside the family circle and folklore. In practice, however, the cultural patterns of Israeli society derived from the European experience, particularly that of Eastern Europe, whose distinctive ethnic elements were woven into the cultural fabric of the society. It was easier for Western immigrants, therefore, to adapt to the developing modes of Israeli culture than for most Eastern immigrants, who found many aspects of the European-Israeli culture baffling and alien. After their initial adaptation to Israeli society, the Eastern communities began to voice indignation at the marginal representation of their cultural heritage within the overall Israeli cultural mix. The Easterners protested loudly against forced cultural conformity and called for cultural pluralism. They demanded that the Eastern cultural heritage be accorded legitimacy as one of the distinctive parts of the whole. To set this right, traditions that had previously been preserved within family and community settings were offered to the general public in the hope of generating societal appreciation of ethnic culture. One of the most prominent of these group rituals is the Mimouna festival. Originating among Moroccan Jews, Mimouna marks the end of the Passover holiday; its main feature is a festive meal with foods symbolizing good fortune and fertility. In Morocco the Mimouna was family centered. Relatives, neighbors and friends exchanged mutual home visits, brought gifts and greeted each other with the customary "May you prosper and do well." Moslems, too, participated in these rituals. In Israel, however, the Mimouna has been transformed from a family-oriented


31

holiday into a communal festival. In the course of time and because of its capacity to attract a wide circle of participants, it has acquired a different character and recently has virtually become a national holiday. Its new meaning and symbolism is the breaking down of cultural barriers and the promotion of friendship, epitomized by home visits between members of different ethnic communities. The broad theme of the festival is brotherhood. The coordinator of the Mimouna celebrations, Moshe Shitrit, has expressed it as follows, "The work that goes into organizing the Mimouna is sacred, rich in values and tradition. It is a holiday of love and brotherhood, of fostering togetherness. . . . This is traditional in Morocco and we must adopt it here, too."16 Members of the political establishment make a point of sending their greetings, and national leaders participate. The Mimouna's popularity has encouraged other ethnic communities to revive similar festivals and traditions of their own, for example, the Kurdish Saharana and the Yemenite Teimaniada. In this manner, the ethnic communities celebrate their own cultural distinctiveness and simultaneously emphasize their identification with Israeli society as a whole. Significantly, most of these ceremonies do not simply hark back to traditional Diaspora models. Rather, they mix old and new elements as part of a social dynamic in which the preservation of the community's culture has become a key element in the group's response to its position within the larger society and culture. Of course, the aspiration and struggle for cultural distinctiveness could well have become enclosed, once again, within the internal ethnic sphere had it not been for the fact that the establishment encouraged and accorded legitimacy to the cultural traditions of Eastern Jewry. The discovery, study and promotion of its heritage thus received official blessing. Research institutes were established, scholars specialized in the field and Eastern Jewry's cultural achievements have become a legitimate element in the general school curriculum and have been widely publicized. It is still too early to evaluate the extent to which this cultural heritage has actually been accepted by the public at large. For our purposes it is sufficient to emphasize its legitimation, a factor that has introduced the principle of cultural pluralism into Israeli society. Such distinctive signs of integration, mobility and breakthroughs that have changed previous social patterns blunt the edge of the social gap. From the foregoing analysis, the question arises how to account for these changes. Which of the social and cultural components that the immigrants brought with them or developed during their absorption assisted them in these processes? What changes did Israeli society undergo that enabled it to respond to the immigrants' demands? The Structural and Value Systems of Eastern Jews It is generally accepted that communities in Islamic countries were relatively less exposed to the processes of modernization than were the communities in Christian countries. Therefore, their occupational and educational levels, organizational systems and family roles were generally traditional. From the outset such factors placed the members of these communities at a disadvantage compared to those from Western countries. The origin of the cultural gap is generally attributed to these

32

Pnina Morag-Talmon

primary givens. Actually, however, the Easterners also possessed structural and value attributes that, according to recent research, gave them certain advantages in the processes of migration and social change and, at times, contributed to the integration and mobility of the members of these communities. In the occupational and economic spheres, mobility and integration are to be found in the creation of an Eastern middle class. This process was accelerated by the possession of specific resources such as knowledge of Arabic and familiarity with Moslem culture that made it easier for Easterners to employ Arab labor. The advent of this middle-class element has, without a doubt, fundamentally altered the Eastern immigrants' social structure even if its extent and economic strength have not yet been precisely measured. Further aiding such economic activity was the vocational training that the Easterners received in Israeli society. This education assisted their economic advancement into the middle classes and in some cases was more effective than the more intellectually oriented high school education they were often not in a position to complete. The Eastern Jewish immigrants came to Israel in the main within the framework of wholly or partially intact communities or of kinship groups. To be sure, most of the social frameworks in which the immigrants were entrenched during the immigration process disintegrated or were dispersed and new kinship systems were formed that synthesized old and new ties. In a society that emphasized modernization and achievement, these systems were not perceived at first as positive factors. On the contrary, often—especially at the beginning of the absorption process— these structures and the values they embodied were thought to impede the process of integration and social progress. However, a generation or a generation-and-a-half of absorption clearly indicates that kinship ties do not necessarily stand in the way of the process of social integration and mobility. Extended families act as a focal point of socialization—especially with regard to the forming of relationships and the transmission of information—and they guide members through the various instrumental spheres. Recent research findings show that within extended families, networks of family members help relatives make their way within the bureaucracy so as to receive favors that are within the legitimate realm of protekzia ("pull," or favoritism). They also give help in employment, whether through the concentration of families in the same workplaces or through the creation of partnerships in economic enterprises, mostly of the small-business and artisan type.17 In the political sphere, these networks of relatives also form support groups for ethnic political activities, mostly at the local level.18 Thus, such systems fulfill an important role in creating inter-generational continuity and strengthening intra-generational ties. Inter-generational continuity contributes to the transmission of information of a general personal and value nature that is an important component in identity formation. It occurs mainly through the preservation of ethnic and religious traditions by means of family festival gatherings that revolve around rituals and ceremonies.19 This traditional value system constituted the primary axis around which the network of communal and family life in the dispersion moved, and it was also the source of basic Zionist belief. Although Zionism as a secular nationalist ideology made some inroads among Eastern Jews prior to their immigration, it remained anchored in religious tradition, while traditional religion was reinforced by the longing for Zion and Jerusalem. Part


33

of the culture shock experienced by Eastern immigrants in Israel derived from the confrontation with a secular Zionism that rejected traditional values and culture. Their own road to Zionism was—and remains—largely the road of religion and tradition. Through primordial Zionist values of this type, a substantial proportion of the Eastern immigrants were able to come to terms with the activist Zionism of the State of Israel. Most Easterners still tend to place themselves in the space between tradition and religion, and only a minority would define themselves as secular.20 To be sure, standards of religious behavior accepted by the Easterners do not always meet the test of strict Orthodoxy, and it has also changed from what was accepted by these communities as boundary defining in the Diaspora. Thus, for example, Easterners may be strict about immersion in the mikveh, pilgrimages to the graves of sages and synagogue attendance but less strict about the laws of kashrut or refraining from travel on the Sabbath. Yet religion retains great significance as a focus of national allegiance and as a component of personal identity.21 These structural and sociocultural factors (and possibly others not yet researched) have promoted the collective connection of Easterners with Israeli society. This has not been a one-way process of integration. The factors mentioned worked for Eastern immigrants because of a general growth and development in Israeli society. As part of this process, the center in particular underwent a transformation, facilitating a steady increase in the number of Eastern immigrants within it. Changes at the Center Increasing recognition of particular group heritages and the change in the social composition of the political leadership clearly illustrate the response of the sociopolitical center to ethnic demands. Such responsiveness was itself, however, partly the result of a broader process of change within the establishment that reflected the differentiation of Israeli society. The ideological value system of the founding generation that stressed self-sacrifice, pioneering and equality was only partially implemented; thus from the outset, it was difficult for the newer immigrants to adopt or identify with these ideals. Yet, as the ideals themselves became eroded, their collectivist thrust was displaced by greater emphasis on the individual and his rights. At the same time, support for religion and the traditional heritage of Judaism became more significant. In all, secular Zionism—once the dominant ideological model—was exposed to strong competition from other ideological positions. The character of Israel's national center was further affected by the challenge to the idea of Israel's primacy. This came from contemporary Diaspora Jewish communities that are centers in their own right and seek parity with Israel. Finally, the fact that a majority of the Jewish people continues to live in the Diaspora by choice presents an ongoing challenge to Israel and Zionism. Today, there is a struggle between the Jewish leadership in the Diaspora and that in Israel over value emphases, the definition of identity and even over the abiding significance of the Diaspora's existence. From a practical point of view, immigration to Israel has declined; thus the center in Israel must continue to grapple with, and become resigned to, the existence of a Diaspora in all its Jewish, Zionist and assimilationist aspects.

34

Pnina Morag-Talmon

As a result of these changes and challenges, the Israeli elite has undergone a process of differentiation and pluralization and now encompasses the entire political spectrum from left to right. More important, perhaps, a whole range of competing ideas coexist at the highest level of the national value system. The effect on the place of Eastern immigrants in Israeli society has been most dramatic. Although the Eastern immigrants' initial integration was hampered by their lack of a social and attitude structure compatible with that of the dominant values of Israeli society, the increased pluralism of Israeli society now provides new and alternative channels that facilitate their integration and input into the social system. Under these conditions, in direct contrast with the past, the social structure and values of the Eastern immigrants and their children confer distinct advantages. A striking manifestation of this process has been the emergence of Shas (Sephardi Torah Guardians), an Eastern political party representing an Orthodox constituency. The leaders of Shas are, with one exception, Eastern religious scholars, many of whom were educated in the traditionalist "Lithuanian" (East European, nonhasidic Orthodox) yeshivot, but were excluded from leadership positions in Agudat Israel. They have, therefore, broken away and organized an independent political grouping: first at the municipal level, now at the national level. The party has no central office, formal institutions or local branches, but it has voter appeal among those who identify with traditionalist religious values. As a result, Shas differs from all previous forms of political organization in the Eastern communities. The mass migration of Oriental Jewry from their former places of residence in Islamic countries did not bring them all to Israel. Large concentrations of Eastern Jewish immigrants have formed within Jewish communities in Western countries, which today compete with Israel along the lines of "Babylon and Jerusalem." The significance of this factor for Eastern immigrants in Israeli society is that the Eastern Diaspora today is, geographically, mainly a Western Diaspora situated in France, Canada and the United States. This has enabled it to shed those aspects of Moslem culture in which it had been immersed in the past. Somewhat paradoxically, its contribution to the integration of Easterners in Israel derives, in part, from its own successful integration in the West. Their ties with Israel, based on Zionist and underlying religious values, help the Eastern emigre communities in the West to maintain their group integrity, even as they integrate themselves into the larger Jewish society. In so doing these new communities have become part and parcel of the organized Jewish communities abroad, through special organizations (e.g., the Sephardi Federation) or other communal and Zionist bodies. Consequently, their relations with Israel as communities are partially mediated by, and maintained through, these institutions; but it is this that enables them to participate right at the center of Israeli society. Thus, in both these areas of Zionism and religion the structural and value differentiation and pluralism that developed at the center of Israeli society facilitated the integration of Eastern immigrants into the general social framework, Ethnicity in Israeli Society What is the meaning of this portrait of absorption and integration for the place of ethnicity in Israeli society? In the last two decades, the study of ethnicity has


35

focused on two primary areas of concern. One involves the development and characteristics of specific groups that enable them to maintain and transform themselves in modern society. The second traces the interaction in the larger social setting of the component factors of ethnicity, the most important of which are "distinctive values, customs, beliefs, language or dialect; heritage and history—[a group's] culture—and . . . distinctive primary and secondary relationships, networks, bonds, social circles—its structure."22 The literature differentiates between the terms "ethnic category," "ethnic group" and "ethnic identity." An ethnic category is a set of people who have in common a number of characteristics associated with ethnicity but who are not necessarily bound together by an internal coherence that might lead to interaction or common activity. The term "ethnic group" is used to describe a set of people who, in addition to more broadly defined ethnic characteristics, are linked (at least potentially) by common interests. Under certain conditions an ethnic category may develop into an ethnic group. In this regard, contemporary studies place considerable emphasis on the fluidity of ethnic boundaries and on the way in which this allows new ethnic groups to form and to reform.23 But the main focus of recent ethnic studies has been on ethnic identity: a concept based on the "awareness of a distinctive origin and way of life"24 shared by individual members of a group. Jewish ethnic groups organized to defend their own interests are almost nonexistent in Israeli society. In the past, political parties with a specific ethnic base tended to disintegrate quickly. Landsmanshaften dedicated to aiding newcomers and encouraging the group to express its own culture—typical of ethnic organizations in immigrant societies—did not flourish in the welfare state context of Israeli society. Some ceased to function after a short period, although a few continued to promote cultural and social activity at the local level. Most of these organizations, however, did not outlive the immigrant generation (apart from a few that formed national organizations dedicated in the main to the preservation and public presentation of their distinctive communal and cultural traditions). Thus, ethnicity in Israel is confined chiefly to ethnic categories and ethnic identity. Israeli society is divided into two basic ethnic categories: the Ashkenazim and the Eastern communities. But neither has developed into an exclusive ethnic group at the political, social, economic or cultural level. Indeed, tendencies in this direction have been broken down consistently by those new avenues of mobility analyzed earlier that reflect the increasing social differentiation of the society as a whole. Although the existence of ethnic categories therefore serves to identify and distinguish Israelis, it implies no further group divisions. Consequently, the single most important component of ethnicity in Israel is ethnic identity. Because ethnic boundaries are dynamic and relatively porous, individuals and groups may select from a pool of traditional ethnic elements those that seem to serve them best as a link to their own origins. This pool includes both structural and cultural elements that relate to style and behavior, language, dialect, music, culinary habits and social etiquette as well as value systems and worldviews. Ethnic identity may be actively expressed through interaction at the interpersonal or the sub-group level—family, neighborhood, synagogue—or it may remain latent. In many cases it fuses old and new elements and, as such, integrates aspects of the Israeli experience with earlier Jewish and gentile identifications.25

36

Pnina Morag-Talmon

This heterogeneity often generates acute dilemmas of identity as found, for example, among writers of Eastern origin who express the sense of pain, inner division and stress caused by the differences between the various components of their identity. Thus, Shlomo Albaz writes, "Marakesh and Jerusalem are both intermingled in my soul: color, affection and belonging." Similarly, Eli Amir observed, "It proved impossible both to preserve [the cultures of] eighty diasporas and to forge one Jewish cultural world" and Shlomo Bar struggles to create new melodies that combine tunes from East and West but finds it hard to have an impact on Israeli melodies.26 The restriction of ethnic distinctiveness to ethnic categories, on the one hand, and to ethnic identity, on the other hand, reflects the strength of the collective bonds and shared commitments of Israeli society. Two underlying factors in particular contribute to this situation: the central role of immigration as the society's raison d'etre and those shared elements that had bound Jewish communities to each other even in the Diaspora. These factors were given expression in the social and political rights and benefits granted to immigrants on arrival, and they were later anchored in an egalitarian system that promoted free and compulsory schooling, subsidized higher education and compulsory military service for all (both conscript and reserve). Together, these frameworks served to develop and uphold common national ideological values. Public ceremonies and national holidays further highlighted the unity of the Israeli nation. These stemmed from both the ancient traditions of the nationalreligious heritage and the new civil observances that were linked to the rise of the state and the dramatic events in its history. Five wars and the constant security threat reinforce the sense of mutual responsibility and common fate that fundamentally unites the society and over-arches cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic differences. Moreover, the non-achievement of social equality and the existence of divisiveness and tensions based on Western and Eastern categories are perceived by all as a failure of the society as a whole. So too, criticism of bureaucratic inflexibility and insensitivity to distinctive cultural traditions is voiced generally and not just by aggrieved immigrants. By and large, the major political and cultural institutions have endeavored to right the wrongs by recognizing the immigrants' cultural heritage and by opening up more channels of political mobility. By the same token, some leading figures who might serve to express and enhance their own group's political success publicly eschew such a role. To quote David Levy, the deputy prime minister of Moroccan origin, "I never sought to make hay out of the ethnic issue, and in my heart and soul I absolutely reject that."27 The integration process in Israel is most advanced and most noticeable within the lower middle class where, as noted, many of the avenues of upward mobility have been concentrated. Yet, even if intimate socializing and social activity in these middle brackets do not, as a rule, cross ethnic and cultural boundaries, the existing structural similarities suggest that common social activity will become more usual in the future. Both the readiness of the society to accept newcomers and of newcomers to be absorbed into Israeli society derive basically from the fundamental difference be-


37

tween Israel and other immigrant societies, which is that the ethnic encounter in Israel takes place on the basis of shared primordial historical and religious attachments that preserved the individual communities in their Diaspora history. Side by side with the cultural and historical experiences that divided one Jewish Diaspora from another, the common element of Jewish identity and Judaic culture was always present. For their part, the immigrants have refrained from forming separatist ethnic communities or groups. Quite the opposite: particularist cultural traditions are presented as a contribution to the richly diverse cultural pool of the entire society. Ethnic festivals are celebrated with the intent of including members of other groups and broadening the range of participants. The role of existing ethnic organizations is not to segregate; instead, they seek integration while maintaining communal and cultural diversity. The same pattern is also apparent in politics, where (as noted) it has emerged as a significant path of upward ethnic mobility. This has developed in a two-stage process. The first stage involved politicians who tended to use their ethnic connections in electoral campaigns by basing voting blocs on family and community networks and by introducing ethnic planks into party platforms. Such support networks are especially important in local politics, where voter mobilization relies to a great extent on candidate recognition. Here family, neighborhood and, through these, the ethnic community at large can make all the difference. At the second stage, candidates reach office, where they seek to serve as symbols of ethnic achievement and political success; but they are not generally identified solely as the spokesmen or standard-bearers of their own community. Instead, they focus on broader national issues and in their political orientations reflect the spectrum of national opinion. In so doing they accept in effect the proposition that the national interest comes before potentially divisive ethnic interests, thereby reinforcing commonalities between the various groups of immigrants and between Israel and the Diaspora. In many cases these same attachments determined the immigrants' choice of Israel as a new homeland, even when they were forced to emigrate. The underlying unity of Israeli society, based on Zionism as a modern national movement, rests—whether consciously or not—on those same unifying primordial foundations that are strong among the Eastern communities. These communities in Israel have not followed a uniform path of integration. Social gaps, mainly in the professional and educational spheres, still exist and may continue for generations to come. However, various routes of social mobility are being developed, a complex cultural mosaic created and new political paths paved. In the ethnic field, then, forty years have tipped the scales in favor of bridging gaps through a constant effort to draw on what is shared by all.

Notes 1. The term "Easterners" refers to immigrants from Asian and African countries and may extend to their children.en.

38

Pnina Morag-Talmon

2. The term "Westerners" designates immigrants from Europe, the United States, Latin America and Oceania, again extending to the next generation. 3. Vivian Z. Klaff, "Residence and Integration in Israel: A Mosaic of Segregated Groups," Ethnicity 4 (1977), 103-121. 4. Seymour Spilerman and Jack Habib, "Development Towns in Israel: The Role of Community in Creating Ethnic Disparities in Labor Force Characteristics," American Journal of Sociology 81, (1976), 781-812. 5. Among the most prominent of these studies are: Sammy Smooha, Israel: Pluralism and Conflict (London and Henley: 1978); Yohanan Peres, Yahasei'edot beyisrael (Tel-Aviv: 1976); Eliezer Ben-Rafael, The Emergence of Ethnicity: Cultural Groups and Social Conflict in Israel (Westport and London: 1982). 6. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Absorption of Immigrants (London: 1954); Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Rivkah Bar-Yosef and Chaim Adler (eds.), Integration and Development in Israel (Jerusalem: 1970). 7. Yaakov Nahon, Megamot beta'asukah: hameimad ha'adati (Jerusalem: 1984), 126-134. 8. Central Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Abstract of Israel, 1985 (Jerusalem: 1985), 72. 9. Ibid., 65. 10. Hannah Herzog, "Hareshimotha'adatiyot," Medinah, mimshal vihasim benleumiyyim25 (1986), 94-114. 11. Itzhak Galnoor, "Transformations in the Israeli Political System Since the Yom Kippur War," in Asher Arian (ed.), The Elections in Israel 1977 (Jerusalem: 1980), 119148. 12. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Transformation of Israeli Society (London: 1985), 489509. 13. Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, The Origins of the Israeli Polity: Palestine Under the Mandate (Chicago and London: 1978). 14. Shevah Weiss, Shilton, opoziziah vealternativah (Tel-Aviv: 1981). 15. Devorah Bernstein, "Hapanterim hashehorim: konflikt umehaah bahevrah hayisraelit," Megamot 23 (1979), 79-85. 16. Ma'ariv, 26 April 1985. 17. Pnina Morag-Talmon, "Family Networks and Social Integration Among the Moroccans in Israel," Reshatot hevratiyot behevrah mitgabeshet: rav siah (Jerusalem: 1985), 21-33. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Shlomo Deshen, "Ha'adatiyut shel yozei hamizrah bemashav ha'aliyah," in Yehudei hamizrah (Jerusalem: 1985), 71-77; Moshe Shokeid, "Megamot hadashot be'adatiyut shel yozei hamizrah," in Yehudei hamizrah, 61-69. 22. W. W. Isajiw, "Definitions of Ethnicity," Ethnicity 1 (1974), 111-124. 23. Frederick Barth (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Social Organization of Cultural Differences (London: 1970). 24. Pnina Morag-Talmon, "Hishtalvutah shel 'edah vatikah behevrat mehagrim" (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University, 1980). 25. Moshe Shokeid, The Dual Heritage (New Brunswick and Oxford: 1985). 26. "The Twenty-first Annual America-Israel Dialogue of the American Jewish Congress," Congress Monthly 53, no. 3 (1986). 29. Ma'ariv, 26 March 1986.

The Changing Experience, Power and Prestige of Ethnic Groups in Israel: The Case of the Moroccans Eliezer Ben-Rafael (TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY)

THE ISRAELI MOSAIC Forty years after its establishment as a state, Israel is still the youngest society in the world. Nearly 41 percent of its Jewish citizens were not born in the country1 and are of various origins. No single group is dominant. The largest are the Moroccans, who represent 14 percent of the population; next the Poles (9 percent), followed by the Russians, Romanians and Iraqis (8 percent each). Various other groups such as the Hungarians and the Yemenites account for between 2 and 5 percent of the population; still others such as the Bulgarians and the Greeks account for 1 or 2 percent. Israel's English, French and American Jews number even fewer. These figures refer to first- and second-generation Israelis, and they tend to diminish naturally as the proportion of third-generation Israelis of all origins increases; in 1984 the latter already constituted 17 percent of the population.2 This intricate ethnic landscape is often simplified by the use of terms that reduce the diversity to two broad categories: one is the Ashkenazi, Occidental or EuroAmerican Jews; the second is referred to as Sephardi, Oriental or Afro-Asian Jews. Each broad label has both advantages and limitations.3 Their use masks marked conceptual difficulties that, in fact, reflect the more fundamental confusion that characterizes the ethnic scene in Israel. Apart from minor exceptions, the various groups are not distinguished by any racial features and, leaving aside mere cult differences, they are all bound—in varying degrees— by a common religion and a collective consciousness fashioned by schools, military service and life experience in Israel that is reinforced by the country's security situation. Nevertheless, the practical meaning of mizug galuyot (the integration of the exiles) remains an issue of heated debate. Certain groups such as the Yemenite and Kurdish Jews remain ecologically distinct, living in high concentrations in certain towns, neighborhoods and settlements. On another level, Oriental resentments and frustrations are frequently expressed in the media and, during the last five years, 39

40

Eliezer Ben-Rafael

independent ethnic lists have gained Knesset representation. Similarly, Moroccan, Persian and Kurdish feasts and festivals are now celebrated with more public ceremonialism than in the past. The Ethnic Issue The sociological study of ethnicity is generally concerned with three major aspects: the basic value-related organizational and political dimensions of the social order; the orientations and resources that characterize the minority group (i.e., the ethnic group that is not the dominant force); and ethnic stratification. Students of Israeli ethnicity are no exception and, whatever their approach, they generally relate to one or another of these aspects. Thus, for example, Marx studies the response of North Africans to bureaucracy;4 Herzog, the political manipulation of ethnicity;5 Inbar and Adler, the differential opportunity structures for social advancement;6 Cohen, ethnic protest;7 Weingrod, the symbiosis of class and ethnic culture;8 Shokeid, conflicts in a school setting;9 Yaar and Semyonov, mechanisms of discrimination;10 and Peres11 and Shuval,12 inter-ethnic prejudices. Eisenstadt13 and Ben-David14 elaborate on the difficulties confronted by traditional groups in internalizing modernity, whereas Deshen illustrates the amplification of ethnic cultures15 and Svirsky16 and Smooha17 deal with ethnic stratification. An overall analysis of ethnic reality and dynamics, however, can benefit from a structural perspective that emphasizes the importance of historical cultures in contemporary society.18 The researcher is thus required not only to define and delineate the sociocultural aspects common to all modern settings but also to investigate each society's unique elements inherited from the past. These aspects of a society's distinctive cultural personality need not be internalized by all members, but they constitute the cultural context—the dominant culture—within which the establishment defines, legitimizes and implements its policies. Ethnic policies must respond to both short- and long-term issues. The first question, of course, concerns the extent to which a group of newcomers is entitled to full membership. A regime may determine the conditions of membership and access in terms of the images it holds of itself and of the newcomers. But if the acquisition of membership implies privileges, it does not necessarily imply a genuinely egalitarian approach. Other aspects of the dominant culture may justify social gaps and set limits to the participation of some groups. At the same time, the newcomers' cultural and social characteristics must be taken into account, as those will influence the extent to which they seek to maintain distinct!veness or are willing to assimilate, are remote from the dominant culture or close to it. That is to say, a group's own preferences will be significant in determining whether it continues to exist as a distinct sociocultural element or whether it disappears. In short, the encounter with the dominant culture will determine the nature and degree of transformation or maintenance of the ethnic reality as well as the shape of the group's social and political profile within the wider setting. This approach is here applied to Israel, concentrating particularly on the case of the Moroccan Jews who, as well as being the largest single group in the country, constitute almost 30 percent of all Orientals. Although in many important respects

The Changing Experience, Power and Prestige of Ethnic Groups in Israel

41

their situation is representative of all Oriental groups,19 in others the Moroccans have experienced greater difficulties than other newcomers and for this reason, too, their case is a noteworthy example. Israel's Dominant Culture The decades preceding the creation of the state were the formative years of Israeli society.20 The process of immigration from Eastern and Central Europe was in the main led by a political and ideological movement, Zionism, which rejected both the Diaspora condition and the traditional Jewish establishment as well as assimilation into the surrounding non-Jewish national cultures. The Zionists legitimized the creation of a Jewish state in Israel in terms of Judaism's concept of a common Jewish destiny bound to the Promised Land and the definition of the Diaspora ("dispersion," in Greek) as galut ("exile," in Hebrew).21 Zionism called for the practical implementation of these values by embedding them in a modern nation, Israel, the natural homeland of the Jews. Accordingly, it required that immigrants be accepted unconditionally as equal members of the new state, whose citizens were expected to become united through a process of mizug galuyot (the integration of the exiles). This process would produce a new culture in which the values of all groups would be represented. At the same time, the socialist convictions of large segments of the settler population demanded universal rights of political and social participation and economic equality. This ideology had earlier spawned various forms of collective and cooperative activity and an exceptional range of public services. Since the 1950s, however, a competing cultural outlook, the Western meritocratic version of modernity, has had increasing influence in Israel. Professional competence, educational achievement and entrepreneurship have become major criteria of success and status and together with a competitive job market have introduced marked inequalities. The waves of immigration within a harsh environment and the difficult security conditions further contributed to the growth of inequality. As in any society of immigrants, seniority and founder status in particular were significant in determining an individual's social importance and gave rise to a prestige ranking that was transmitted to the next generation. Mostly of East European origin, these founders and their children constitute a special segment of the Ashkenazim; co-opting outsiders of outstanding achievement, they have long dominated public offices as well as the political parties, the military, the unions, industry and the arts. Another key element of Israel's dominant culture—democracy—as embodied in the proportional representation electoral system, has, on the other hand, prevented the ruling class from becoming a closed caste and made it pay for its privileged status by assuming special responsibilities toward weaker groups. Overall, the Israeli dominant culture is by no means consistent. In fact, its various focal elements often diverge, thus inevitably arousing tensions, conflicts and pressures for change. These are exacerbated by the partial incompatibility of the givens of the dominant culture with the predispositions, resources and outlooks of many newcomers such as the Jews of Yemen, Kurdistan, Libya, Syria or Morocco.

Eliezer Ben-Rafael

42 The Jews in Morocco

The Jews in traditional Morocco were confined to an enclave—the mellah—as dhimmi (the people of the book, "hosted" by the Muslims). They had to pay the jezyah (a special tax) in return for the protection of the ruler.22 The country was divided into the more urban Bled al-Makhzen and the more rural Bled Al-Siba, but in both areas most of the Jews were indigent craftsmen or tradesmen. The extended family was the axis of social life; the synagogue with its kuttab (elementary school), the center of community life. Moroccan Jewry, which for many centuries was the center of a rich and powerful Judaism, always had its academies for higher learning. These yeshivot focused on kabbalah studies, under the influence of a local community of Spanish Jews and continuous relations with the academies in the Land of Israel. Also influenced by Marabutean tradition, Jewish mysticism was nourished by the contradiction between the Biblical theogony of the chosen people and the practical submission to the gentiles, as expressed in the condition of the dhimmi. When the French protectorate abolished the jezyah and other discriminatory rules, the Jews eagerly drew nearer to French culture and education. In 1862, fifty years before the French conquest, a first school sponsored by French Jewry's Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU) was established in Tetuan. By 1951 there were sixty-nine AIU schools with 25,000 pupils.23 As I have noted elsewhere, AIU education was quite rudimentary and most teachers were poorly trained. Nevertheless, its emphasis on the study of French and of secular alongside Jewish subjects made an important contribution to the promotion of modern orientations among the Jews.24 The growth of commerce and industry transformed Moroccan Jewry. In 1953 a majority of Moroccan Jews (80 percent) were concentrated in cities,25 mainly in Casablanca (one-third of all Moroccan Jews). The mellahs were now overcrowded and social problems accumulated. On the other hand, many Jews belonged to a new middle class of clerks, professionals and businessmen. This class was deeply influenced by European culture and, as a result, was often uncertain about its Judaism. Some strove for total integration into French culture; others advocated the cause of Moroccan independence; a third group was politically radical; many were proZionist. Formally all Jews were dhimmis, although the segregative practical obligations of this status no longer existed.26 In fact, until the very end of the protectorate, this legal situation obliged the Jews to engage permanently in lobbying with both the Moroccan and the French authorities.27 The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 was perceived in the mellah and in the remote rural communities as the beginning of the messianic age. A subsequent deterioration in Muslim-Jewish relations, echoing the Arab-Israeli conflict, served as a further incentive to leave Morocco and tens of thousands emigrated to the new Jewish state. Nevertheless, the relative advantages for Jews under colonialism kept most back until the eve of Morocco's independence. The dramatic change for the worse in relations between Muslims and Jews that followed the abrupt departure of the Europeans encouraged the vast majority to respond to the solicitations of Zionism (now illegal) and leave for Israel, with small minorities emigrating to France and Canada.


43

A majority of the Moroccan immigrants were city dwellers who knew French and embraced both modern and colonial values, some having been employed in factories and administrative jobs. Still others arrived from rural areas and had only a rudimentary education. For the most part, these immigrants held traditional views regarding family, religion and polity.28 In crucial respects, the situation of the Moroccans resembled that of many other Oriental groups. They viewed emigration to Israel as a practical solution to their diasporic problems and as the realization of the ancestral Jewish tradition. Zionism was conceived of not as a new form of Judaism, but as embedded in Judaism itself.29 The ultimate goal of immigration was twofold: to join and melt into the Jewish nation and to erase all previous inferiority and insecurity. These aspirations, when confronted with the reality of absorption, created Israel's ethnic issue. MEMBERSHIP: CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ASPECTS Prejudice Versus Mizug The cultural distance between groups such as the Moroccans and the establishment quickly aroused prejudices. As late as the 1970s, Lewis reports that in a small town "folk concepts such as 'primitives' and 'lacking culture' are often used by civil servants to rationalize personal failures [with the population] as well as to deflect social pressures emanating from townspeople and outsiders."30 The officials in charge of absorption in the late 1940s and 1950s were disturbed by the strict observance of religious customs characteristic of the Yemenite Jews and the Kurds, their large families and their low level of education. Prejudices toward the Moroccan Jews were particularly contemptuous. The cultural anomie that had developed in some overcrowded mellahs and that was still occasionally expressed in Israel by outbreaks of violent behavior by youngsters soon gave rise to derogatory epithets such as maroko sakin (Moroccan knife). As a result, for a long period this group was the least esteemed in Israel.31 Many of those affected introduced themselves as of "southern French" origin, a reaction that stigmatized the group further. Even if not under the influence of these prejudices, government absorption policy toward Moroccan and other Oriental immigrants was characterized by segregative tendencies: they were often settled in separate neighborhoods, villages and towns according to their origins. The aspirations of the immigrants and of the absorbers converged in the basic Zionist commitment to the equal membership and complete integration of Jewish immigrants. However, the ruling class conceived of mizug in their own secular terms. At best, the distinctive traditions of each group were to be tolerated as a part of the Jewish heritage, but were to be vigorously opposed in the long term as particularisms that would impede the implementation of mizug. Such attitudes raised questions for those groups of Jews who had not participated in the crystallization of the dominant culture but whose right to influence the new society was justified by the mizug ideology itself, which called for fusion, not just assimilation. The responses, however, differed widely from group to group. In the

44

Eliezer Ben-Rafael

case of Western Jews, unfamiliarity with those aspects of the dominant culture reminiscent of Eastern Europe was hardly an obstacle to its acceptance. Although they might regret the lack of emphasis on certain cherished values, as secular individuals they did not attach sacred meaning to their own particular habits, norms and social patterns. They were thus ideologically prepared for cultural change, and their children, if not they themselves, were able to become part of a wide non-ethnic secular grouping. On the other side of the spectrum, the ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi community sought to maintain its separateness from all other groups. Though of the same European origins as the early Zionist pioneers, they rejected Zionism as an ideology; for many of them it was the traditional Diaspora way of life that reflected the very sacredness of Judaism.32 Their entire commitment was to their own institutions, social patterns and leaders. Oriental Jews stand between the Orthodox, on one side, and the secular-minded Westerners, on the other. Ethnic Communities The North African and the Middle Eastern communities do, indeed, share a special experience. Some aspects of Israeli-Ashkenazi behavior offend their sensitivities. The anti-galut ideology of Israeli-born Ashkenazim, their outspokenness, irreligiosity, greater sexual freedom and small families were enigmas to them.33 For the Moroccans in particular the omnipresence of bureaucratic agencies often aroused hostility in the context of their longstanding and frustrating experience with colonial authorities in their country of origin.34 Initially, the strong proclivity of these groups for ecological concentration converged with the settlement policy of the authorities and produced considerable residential stability. Although over the years many have, in fact, moved, the rate of ethnic concentration has not been drastically affected.35 In the Galilee and the Negev, Moroccans constitute a major element of the population—their share varying from one-third to four-fifths, according to the town. At the same time, in the main cities—Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa—they concentrate in certain neighborhoods. Although only 5 percent of Tel-Aviv's population, Moroccans constitute 22 percent of one quarter; although 14 percent of the Jewish population of Jerusalem, they make up 30 percent in one neighborhood; and in Haifa, where their share of the population is 10 percent, it is 37 percent in one area.36 The persistence of ecological concentration among Moroccans (and Yemenites and Kurds) contrasts sharply with the quite rapid dispersion of Romanian, Hungarian and Polish enclaves. Concomitantly, endogamy is common among Moroccans, as among other Oriental groups.37 In the late 1960s almost half of all Moroccan brides and grooms still married Moroccan spouses. By the mid-1970s the figures were even somewhat higher owing to the greater number of Moroccans of marrying age at that time, but a decline in this tendency has since occurred. Although substantial processes of mizug do thus exist, they occur gradually. Similarly, the group is slowly becoming less socially exclusive. Recent research comparing several groups of origin shows that although almost all Moroccans have


45

Table 1. Odds of Having Close Friends from Different Groups of Origin

3

Different Country of Origin

Different Broad Ethnic Category11

Blue collar Moroccans Iraqis Poles Romanians

1.78 11.40 6.40 4.67

0.34 0.70 2.58 3.88

White collar Moroccans Iraqis Poles Romanians

4.39 12.43 7.08 4.22

1.10 1.79 1.60 1.57

a The term "odds" signifies the probability that someone of a given group has at least one out of three best friends from another country of origin and/or broad ethnic category relative to the probability of not having one. b

Whether Ashkenazi or Oriental.

Source: Adapted from Hannah Ayalon, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, "Ethnicity, Class and Friendship Networks." In preparation.

at least one Moroccan friend among their best friends, a majority also has at least one Ashkenazi best friend (see Table 1).38 Compared with Iraqis, however, Moroccans are much more cohesive; Iraqis, in fact, are even less cohesive than the Ashkenazi groups. The continuity of community life among the Moroccans is especially conspicuous in the realm of religious life and symbols. As in Morocco, the Zohar is still studied with great fervor by circles of rabbis. Moroccan synagogues are numerous and serve as community centers where festivals, bar mitzva celebrations and weddings are held. From pilgrimages to tombs of saints, to the Celebration of Bread (Mimouna) at the end of Passover, many parochial customs are kept alive. Renowned "saints" such as the Abuhatzera Baba Sali maintain their position as spiritual guides, whereas time-honored practices such as witchcraft have not disappeared entirely.39 However, under the combined influence of the environment and decreasing dependence on communal institutions,40 the rabbi has lost much of his centrality among Moroccans.41 The new Israeli-born generation is less involved in this ethnoreligious endeavor than are its elders, though it finds its own forms of ethnic attachment. Moroccan singers, for example—from Jo Amar in the 1950s to Raymonda in the 1980s— enjoy great popularity among the young who appreciate Oriental rhythms or styles.42 As a rule, the saliency of ethnic culture is diminishing, but it has not vanished. The Moroccans, like other Oriental groups, have adopted new norms that are both transforming and maintaining their social personality.

46

Eliezer Ben-Rafael The 'Edah Type of Ethnic Group

An ethnic group, as defined by social scientists, consists of a group of people who consciously share some common primordial attributes (religion, origin, race or language) and forms of social participation.43 In Israel what distinguishes Jews from each other is that beyond—and despite—the uniqueness of each group's culture or social traits, they all share the same concept of global identity, the Jewish nation, that is rooted in the parochial cultures they bear, independent of the act of immigration.44 This principle of prior belonging is expressed in the Hebrew term '"edah" (pl. "'edot"), which means a community of Israel. 'Edah refers to any returning tribe in Israel, but it is of more significance for Yemenites, Iraqis or Moroccans than for, say, Russian, Romanian or British Jews. Although most of the latter immigrated in a common secular spirit, the former were moved more by the traditional Jewish call and, as such, were more committed to their heritage. Moreover, these legacies, influenced as they were by their particular historical experiences, represented distinctive versions of Judaism. In Israel, paradoxically, these legacies served to identify their bearers as Moroccans or Yemenites, whereas they had simply been Jews in their countries of origin.45 To be sure, these Oriental 'edot include all other Jews within the wider collective boundaries specified by the concepts "Israeli" and "Jew," as does the dominant culture, but they interpret these labels differently. Although the dominant culture views Israel as the product of a modern Jewish revolution, for the Orientals the Israeli nation is primarily what the Bible and the Talmud describe as the People of Israel. Similarly, although both sides share a commitment to the national idea itself as well as to mizug galuyot, each,'from its own point of view, sees the other critically: for the dominant culture, the Orientals are pre-modern and traditionalist; for the Orientals, the dominant culture is not the most faithful expression of Judaism. Thus, no less than the cultural distance separating the Oriental from the Ashkenazi, the perception of this distance creates a fundamental divergence. Against this background, the dichotomous Oriental/Ashkenazi categorization, which is frequently taken for granted as a symmetrical division, must be reconsidered carefully. Undeniably, the sociocultural differences between these categories are relatively wider than those existing within each of them. The Oriental category, however, consists of numerous groups that are distinct 'edot, each with its own particular legacy. At the same time, the Ashkenazi category is unified within an over-arching secular context in which ethnic allegiances are played down. Recent comparative research confirms this analysis.46 Samples of Moroccans, Iraqis, Poles and Romanians show that "Jew" and "Israeli" constitute the first labels with which they generally identify. Both the Moroccans and the Iraqis, however, are equally divided between those who evaluate "Jew" higher than "Israeli," and those who take the opposite stand. In contrast, two-thirds of both Poles and Romanians put "Israeli" before "Jew." Similarly, twice as many Ashkenazim (40 percent) as Orientals completely reject ethnic labels. Among those who endorse them, the more specific label ("Polish" or "Romanian") is generally set in fourth place, after the wider term ("Ashkenazi"). The Orientals are again equally divided between those who prefer the specific identification ("Moroccan," or

Table 2.

Pride in Global and Ethnic Identities (percentage) Moroccans

Iraqis

Romanians

Poles Higher Pride

Lower Pride

Higher Pride

Lower Pride

Higher Pride

Lower Pride

Higher Pride

Lower Pride

Jewish

68

32

75

25

83

17

93

7

Israeli

85

15

89

11

91

18

94

6

Ethnicspecifica

30

70

32

68

71

29

75

25

Ethnicbroadb

22

78

36

64

70

30

79

21

Identity

According to the country of origin. b

According to the Ashkenazi/Oriental categories

Source: Hannah Ayalon, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, "Variations in Ethnic Identification Among Israeli Jews," Ethnic and Racial Studies i (1985).

48

Eliezer Ben-Rafael

"Iraqi") or the wider one ("Oriental"). Moreover, although no difference existed between the groups with regard to pride in Israeli and Jewish identities, the Moroccans, and to a smaller degree the Iraqis, expressed greater pride in both their restricted and wider ethnic labels (see Table 2). In keeping with the 'edah model of ethnic groups, the Orientals (especially the Moroccans) affirm more strongly than the Ashkenazim the Jewish element in the Israeli identity; concomitantly, they are more likely to accept ethnic labels. Moreover, among the Orientals, those who exhibit greater pride in "Moroccanness" or "Iraqiness" are also more likely to exhibit pride in their "Orientalness." Particularly conspicuous among the Ashkenazim, by way of contrast, is the large proportion who refuse to consider ethnic labels at all. These findings thus support the contention that the Ashkenazi tends to deethnicize much more than does the Oriental, whereas the Moroccan and the Iraqi are "Oriental" to the extent that they continue to identify with their specific group of origin. This lack of symmetry between the Orientals and the Ashkenazim is a fundamental aspect of Israel's ethnic reality. ETHNICITY AND SOCIAL EQUALITY Becoming a Working Class The different patterns of ethnic identification, however, are only one element in the dynamics of ethnic reality. The confrontation between the socioeconomic market and the newcomers' predispositions and resources, which creates a new status map in society, is yet another. In addition to being small, Israel is a country of immigrant settlement. Acquaintance networks are thus relatively extended, especially among veteran families. This may confer informal advantages when dealing with public and bureaucratic bodies, with the result that those who lack them may feel discriminated against. Moreover, the cultural differences that commonly separate the newcomers from officials of the absorptive establishment have engendered prejudices and discriminatory practices in areas such as employment, housing and education.47 Numerous Israelis today agree that discrimination exists in the country; of those who single out particular groups as being discriminated against, many say that the Oriental Jews are the principal victims of this practice (see Table 3). The Moroccan especially was most often stigmatized by officials as temperamental, aggressive and primitive.48 While any newcomer is entitled on arrival to all the services and benefits of the welfare state, in the long run, individual socioeconomic status is widely a function of competitive achievement criteria. Here, individual resources—education, formal qualifications, know-how, entrepreneurship—are of the greatest importance. In this regard, groups like the Moroccans, Yemenites or Kurds were disadvantaged from the start owing to the fact that a large proportion of their members (one-third of the men and two-thirds of the women) were illiterate, and many of them had been engaged previously in craftsmanship, shopkeeping or provision of menial services. The characteristically large Oriental families only added to these social difficul-

49

The Changing Experience, Power and Prestige of Ethnic Groups in Israel Table 3.

Belief in the Existence of Discrimination Among Jewish Groups (percentage) Beliefs

Moroccans

Iraqis

Poles

Romanians

33 23 44 100 214

30 26 44 100 201

40 35 25 100 181

43 28 29 100 204

57 43 100 214

53 47 100

37 63 100 181

41 59 100 204

42

38 20 42 100 75

(A) Does discrimination exist in Israel? 1 . Not at all 2. To some extent 3. Definitely yes Total N

(B)

Are some groups discriminated against in particular? 1 . No group in particular 2. Some group or groups in particular Total

N (C) Who in particular?

72 2 26 100 122

1 . Oriental Jews 2. Ashkenazim 3. Other groups Total

N

201 72 3 25 100 107

17 41 100 74

Source: Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Ayda Dinya and Stephen Sharot, "Ethnic Discrimination and Prejudice in Israel." In preparation.

ties because their income supported four or five more people than did that of their Ashkenazi fellow worker. For the same reason, Oriental women, in contrast with Ashkenazi women, were rare in the job market. As a result, in the moshavim, towns and cities, the Orientals actually monopolized positions of social inferiority. Among the Moroccans only a small minority (those of rural origin) was able to adjust with success to moshav agriculture, and most were settled instead in development towns,49 encountering high unemployment rates and difficult educational problems. On the other hand, the absence of strong Ashkenazi groups there meant the availability of relatively more opportunities for participation in municipal affairs and for small business enterprise. Social Change In 1961 only 12 percent of Moroccan-born Israeli men were professionals, clerks and businessmen; 28 percent were craftsmen; 25 percent were farmers and agricultural workers; 35 percent were (mostly unskilled) industrial workers and lowstatus service employees. One decade later (in 1972), the figures already showed a change: 22 percent were professionals, officials, clerks and businessmen; 44 percent were skilled workers in industry; only 8 percent were agriculturalists; and 26 percent were either craftsmen, low-status service employees or unskilled industrial workers. Another decade later (1981), the change was even more marked, with the figures 29 percent, 47 percent, 6 percent and 18 percent, respectively.50 This rise in employment status is common to other Oriental groups such as Yemenites and

50

Eliezer Ben-Rafael Table 4.

Occupational Distribution of Jewish Groups, 19 81 (percenitage) Occupations

Moroccans

Iraqis

Ashkenazim

Professionals, clerks, businessmen

29

42

57

Skilled workers in industry

47

38

29

6

5

6

18

15

8

100

100

100

Agricultural workers, farmers Craftsmen, low-status service employees, unskilled workers Total Note: Male employed persons born abroad.

Source: Yaakov Nahon, Megamot betaasukah: hameimad ha' adati (Jerusalem: 1984).

Iranians and has gone even further among specific groups like the Egyptians and Iraqis. All of them, however, still lag behind the Ashkenazim (see Table 4). In the area of business particularly, the relative advantage of the Ashkenazi is declining: 25 percent of the Ashkenazim and 16 percent of the Orientals were selfemployed in 1961; by 1972 the respective figures were 23 percent and 17 percent. Within a decade equality had been achieved—19 percent of both Ashkenazim and Orientals were self-employed in 1981.51 As for the Moroccans, although only 11 percent of them were self-employed in 1961 and 12 percent in 1972, by 1981 the figure was 17 percent. With this almost 50 percent increase, they had just about caught up with the Ashkenazim. Simultaneously, the social and economic difficulties of the Orientals have been eased by changing social patterns: smaller families (from an average Oriental family of 6.3 members in 1974 to 4.0 members in 1980—compared with an Ashkenazi average of 2.5);52 less cramped living conditions (from 4.5 persons per room in an Oriental apartment in 1956—compared with 2.7 for Ashkenazim—to 1.3 in 1980, closely approximating the Ashkenazi average of 0.9); and a marked underlying rise in educational level. As shown in Table 5, progress in education is not the exclusive preserve of the Orientals, but they have, by far, undergone the greatest relative advance. During the 1970s, this narrowing of educational gaps coincided with a parallel reduction of economic disparities.53 In 1969 the average Oriental family earned 69 percent of the average family income in Israel; an average Ashkenazi family, 111 percent. In 1980 the respective figures were 90 percent and 98 percent. However, because some disparity in family size persisted, in 1980, for instance, a foreignborn Oriental spent 85 percent of the average expenditure per family member and an Israeli-born Oriental, 106 percent, whereas the respective figures for the Ashkenazim were 120 percent and 135 percent. In all, these statistics indicate that the collective plight of the Oriental groups has been ameliorated and the distance from the Ashkenazim has narrowed. They do not, however, add up to a drastic alteration in the basic class differentiation of ethnic categories. Relative to the Ashkenazim, who are dominant in the middle and upper

51

The Changing Experience, Power and Prestige of Ethnic Groups in Israel Table 5.

Years of Schooling of the Population Aged 14 and Older, 1961 and 1981 Years Schooling

Years Schooling 1961

1981

0

1-8

9-12

13+

0

1-8

9-12

13+

4.4

37.2

45.1

13.3

0.9

11.0

63.9

24.2

Israel, father born in Europe, America

0.6

15.2

64.5

19.7

0.5

4.7

53.0

41.8

Europe- America

3.1

45.5

38.5

12.8

2.4

30.9

39.0

27.7

Israel, father born in Asia- Africa

4.2

56.8

34.5

4.5

0.8

16.7

70.7

11.6

39.5

46.3

19.2

3.0

18.8

35.2

36.3

9.7

Jews Origin Israel, father Israeli-born

Asia- Africa

Source: Fanny Ginor, Pe'arim hevratiyim vekhalkaliyim beyisrael (Tel-Aviv: 1983), 122.

classes of society, the Orientals remain the largest category in the working and lower classes. Social Mobility The figures just discussed also mean that another major aspect of the stratification dimension of Israel's ethnic reality is upward individual social mobility by means of organizational hierarchies based on professional skills and by self-employment. The opportunities for both increased in the aftermath of the Six Day War as a result of the expansion of economic activity, the growth of universities and special educational programs at all levels promoting integration and assisting the underprivileged.54 The last two decades have thus witnessed the emergence of a wide stratum of middle- and upper-middle-class Orientals, who by virtue of their mobility have become closer to the Ashkenazim predominant in the middle class and—as expressed in the slackening of their ethnic identification (see Table 6)—more remote from the majority of their group. The shared ideology of the integration of the exiles militates against both their rejection by bourgeois Ashkenazim and condemnation by the ethnic community of their eventual exit from it. However, this tendency of middle-class Orientals to assimilate to the well-established Ashkenazi is not of consistent intensity. The tradesman or the small contractor is less prone than the professional to leave the ethnic community. Although his achievements afford him respect, integration may be difficult in neighborhoods where the prevailing education level and lifestyle are quite different from his own. Only very substantial economic achievements provide the self-assurance required to consider such a move. The professional Oriental, in contrast, needs less material assets to integrate in a new milieu on the basis of his education and occupation. Thus, the economic track of social mobility provides less status-gratification and fewer privileges than the professional track.55

Table 6.

Ethnic Identification by Origin and Socioeconomic Status (percentage) Specific Origin Identity (Morocco or Iraq) Iraqis

Moroccans Degree of Identification

Moroccans

Iraqis

Lower SES

Higher SES

Lower SES

Higher SES

Lower SES

20.5

12.0

18.3

12.2

19.2

11.3

22.3

27.4

25.6

22.6

15.8

28.8

23.3

45.1

38.1

38.3

38.4

40.8

41.7

32.9

36.4

12.1

30.9

13.7

24.1

18.3

30.2

19.2

29.3

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

Higher SES

Lower SES

Low

14.1

8.6

Low-middle

28.2

Middle High Total

Broad Ethnic Identity (Oriental Jew)

Higher SES

Source: Hannah Ayalon, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, "The Costs and Benefits of Ethnic Identification," British Journal of Sociology 37 (1986), 557.


53

The tendency to assimilate to the Ashkenazi also varies according to the specific Oriental group and its social and cultural conditions. In this regard, as in the case of ethnic identification, the Moroccans stand out by virtue of a particularly firm attachment to their cultural legacy, religious life and rituals.56 Although social mobility among Moroccans has encouraged getting closer socially to the predominantly Ashkenazi middle class,57 this tendency is weaker among them than within less traditional 'edot such as the Iraqi Jews. In a comparative study of groups of origin (see also Table I),58 it was found that the odds of white-collar Moroccans and Iraqis having at least one Ashkenazi friend among their three best friends are considerably greater (1.10 and 1.79, respectively) than those of blue-collar Moroccans (0.34) and Iraqis (0.70). The same findings, however, also show that whitecollar Moroccan networks are less heterogeneous, indicating that ethnicity is more important for Moroccans than for Iraqis. THE POLITICAL ARENA: THE ELECTORAL REVERSAL In the political arena, the ethnic issue has been influenced by both democratic principles and the politico-cultural impact of recent Israeli history. Not only were all the new immigrants immediately granted full citizenship rights but, in addition, the establishment developed a variety of government, municipal, party and youth structures to integrate them into the political community under its patronage. In terms of mizug galuyot, these structures were viewed as a temporary necessity to assist in the first stages of adjustment and absorption. For the Ashkenazi immigrants this system had no enduring significance because of their closeness to the dominant culture and their rapid grasp of the social rules. For the Orientals, on the other hand, their past experience in patrimonial societies accounts for a strong initial predisposition to accept such patronization. Such dependence on the establishment tended to be maintained, however, both because of the political leaders' interest in supporters who were under obligation and because of the advantage this pattern represented for the dependent, who thereby gained a direct channel to the political elite. The price of this advantage, however, was the perpetuation of inequality, which inevitably aroused feelings of resentment among the dependent groups. Moreover, their feeble direct representation in elite positions, a consequence of dependence, combined with the difficulties arising from the structure of stratification and from cultural marginalization to create a deep sense of alienation among their members. This was the plight of most Oriental groups, but because of their special difficulties in Israel and the destabilizing nature of their experience in the Diaspora, the Moroccans demonstrated the sharpest sensitivity to deprivation and the strongest involvement in ethnic political dissent. Moroccans were the leaders of the three most intense manifestations of ethnic unrest that Israel has known—Wadi Salib in 1959, the Black Panther movement in 197259 and the Tents movement in 1982—all of which produced some government response to specific demands. These episodes gave rise to a stratum of "natural" leaders from lower-class neighborhoods whose poor education and populist style contrasted with the earlier Oriental pattern of

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leadership by notables, mainly Iraqis, who had been co-opted by the political elite on behalf of ethnic integration. Over time, wider cohorts of Moroccans, like other Orientals, expressed their general discontent with the absorptive establishment by the withdrawal of electoral support from the formerly dominant social-democratic Ma'arakh (Labour Alignment). Their heavy concentration in lower-status strata did not, however, induce them to prefer more leftist tickets, as they interpret their social plight politically more in terms of ethnic relations—"what the Ashkenazim have done to us"—than in class terms. On the other hand, the 'edot do not demonstrate much support for ethnic parties either. As distinct communities, they have difficulty in uniting politically, whereas the tendency of their more mobile elements to assimilate to new social strata has also considerably weakened them organizationally. Moreover, any attempt at autonomous ethnic politics faces here a contradiction that can hardly be overcome: a legitimate ethnic claim may be justified only if intended to forward mizug, that is, the disappearance of the 'edot; the very emergence of ethnic parties, however, represents an institutionalization—and perpetuation—of ethnic pluralism, contradicting this perspective. Two ethnic parties—Tami and Shas—have had limited success in the last decade, and in both cases Moroccans played a critical leadership role. Interestingly, this occurred only when anchored in the religious sector, which suggests that ethnicity is here more easily legitimated in terms of the religious core of Jewish ethnicity. Even so, Tami and Shas together constituted only one-sixth of the Oriental members of the Knesset in 1984. Many Moroccans as well as most other Orientals recently expressed their feelings by backing the nationalist right. Support for the force that was in the opposition when they arrived as immigrants (and until 1977) satisfies the conflict drive against those who were in charge of their absorption at the time. The Likud also happens to be a quite loosely structured party, still relatively open to new figures. Most important, nationalist symbols are close to traditional cultures, including those of the 'edot. In any event, this massive Oriental switch to the right has created an ethnic political polarization with the more prosperous layer—mostly Ashkenazim—remaining loyal to the various left parties led by Labour. Research clearly shows, however, that this greater support for the right among the various Oriental groups is not uniform. A comparison of samples of specific groups of origin shows that Poles and Romanians firmly support Labour (68 percent and 65 percent, respectively) in contrast to the pro-Likud majority of both Iraqis and Moroccans. Yet, although the difference between the Ashkenazi groups is minimal, this is less so with the Oriental groups: the right is backed by 58 percent of the Iraqis but by 73 percent of the Moroccans.60 Moreover, the 'edot are subject to considerable internal variance related to social differences. Middle-class Oriental elements tend to deviate more from their group's norm toward the left, thus they more closely approximate the Ashkenazim. On the other hand, lower-status Ashkenazim support the right more than do middle-class Ashkenazim. Consequently, in the last decade Israel has


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experienced the paradox of a right-wing working class and a left-of-center middle class. The Orientals' switch to the right is responsible for the relative parity that exists in Israel since the late 1970s between the two major parties. In turn, this parity has led to increased competition for support of the Oriental voter and thus has been accompanied by a dramatic rise in the weight and significance of Orientals in politics and administration. Before the 1977 elections, 12 out of 120 members of the Knesset were of Oriental extraction; by 1984 the number had risen to 31. In that year, Oriental candidates occupied the number-two position on five party lists, including both the Ma'arakh and the Likud—compared with none in any previous election. Similarly, there were two Oriental ministers in the pre-1977 government, and eight in 1987, some of whom held major portfolios.61 In addition, in 1987 the army chief of staff, the Knesset speaker and the Histadrut secretary-general were Orientals, as were a number of other high-ranking civil servants and diplomats. The Moroccans played a leading part in these processes. Although they constitute only 14 percent of the total Jewish population and less than one-third of the Orientals, since 1984 nearly 50 percent of all Oriental members of the Knesset and almost 40 percent of the Oriental ministers are Moroccans. While their 13 percent share of Jewish Knesset members (MKs) and ministers approximates their proportion of the total population, they are significantly over-represented as a proportion of the Orientals. This reflects the intensity of political mobilization within this 'edah and the marked capacity to maximize political resources, and it clearly illustrates the dramatic turnabout that has taken place in ethnic relations in Israel. At the same time, new projects have been initiated that benefit poor, predominantly Oriental neighborhoods, especially with regard to residential renewal and the expansion of communal services. Moreover, school programs now place greater emphasis on the contribution of the Yemenite, Iraqi and Moroccan legacies to Judaism, thereby strengthening their participation in the legitimate Israeli culture. PERSPECTIVES Ethnic differences exist in Israel in major areas of social activity, but they are not accepted as a permanent feature of society. The ethnic cleavage is viewed as a problem to be solved, not as a cultural given. This silences most ethnics by preventing them from speaking on behalf of their ethnicity, and it deafens the non-ethnics vis-a-vis the discourse of those who speak up. The reality, however, is dialectical. The dominant culture that initially defined for the Orientals the extent and manner of their membership in society set in motion processes that have turned the question around: What will be the extent and manner of the transformation of society by the 'edot? Initially, Oriental Jews were marginalized by the dominance of the mainly Ashkenazi secular culture. Nor was the regime's welfare ideology powerful enough to prevent the relegation of most of the members of the traditional and semi-traditional 'edot to lower positions. Moreover, in the context of the shared mizug ideology, the similarity of mobile Oriental

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elements to the Ashkenazi middle class promoted their assimilation, thereby leaving ethnicity inextricably inter-woven with social inferiority, despite the real degree of social mobility. Social inequality and cultural marginalization joined together with political under-representation to breed deep feelings of frustration among the Orientals. Under the impact of social stability and the consequent liberation of the Oriental from dependence on the absorptive establishment, this gave way to a growing allegiance to right-wing nationalism, which, by the nature of its message, was closest to the 'edot cultures. Of prime significance now, however, is the enormous increase in the bargaining power of Orientals that has wrought a genuine turnabout in social policy, national symbols and the composition of the national elites. These developments constitute a qualitative alteration and a genuine change in Israeli society, though they do not as yet reverse the picture described. Although greater resources and services are invested in poor neighborhoods, the vast majority of Israel's lower class is still Oriental. Social mobility raises more Orientals today to middle-class positions, but many tend to disappear outside their communities of origin. Many Oriental politicians currently hold key positions but most are part of the establishment. More Oriental values are recognized as integral to the legitimate Israeli culture, but essential cultural differences are still evident throughout society. Mizug seems to be progressing at a greater speed in the late 1980s than in previous decades, but it is entirely foreseeable that when things improve, expectations might rise to a level beyond the capacity for their fulfillment. This could deepen feelings of frustration and lead to new crises, again challenging the broad cohesion of Israeli society and its ability to produce new solutions.

Notes 1. Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Statistical Annual (Jerusalem: 1985), 71. 2. Ibid., 74-75. 3. Ashkenazi refers to Jews originating from Central and Eastern Europe. Its weakness as a category is that it excludes groups such as Sephardi communities in Western countries (The Netherlands, France, England and the United States) that today are mostly indistinguishable from the Ashkenazim in both culture and social milieu. Occidental, however, is even more misleading as most Israeli Ashkenazim are from Eastern Europe. Euro-American is too general to be meaningful. Sephardi (literally, Spanish) is valid only insofar as it relates to those groups that share the legacy of medieval Spanish Jewry, which is not true of most non-Ashkenazi Jews. The wider term, Afro-Asian, is even less appropriate as it conveys racial connotations that apply only to a few very small groups such as the black Indian Bnei Israel and the Ethiopians. Mizrahi, or Oriental, which we shall use here, is less problematic as it refers to all those who are not included in the Ashkenazi label. The shortcoming of this concept, however, is that it gathers under the same heading a wide range of groups that may differ sharply from one another in certain respects—from Jews of Europeanized North African countries and Shiadominated Yemen to those of India and Christian Georgia. 4. Emmanuel Marx, "Alimut ishit be'ayarot 'olim," Megamot 17 (1970), 61-77. 5. Hannah Herzog, 'Adatiutpolitit—hadimui vehameziut (Tel-Aviv: 1986). 6. Michael Inbar and Chaim Adler, Ethnic Integration in Israel (New Brunswick: 1977).


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7. Erik Cohen, "The Black Panthers and Israeli Society," in Ernest Krausz (ed.), Migration, Ethnicity and Community (New Brunswick: 1980), 147-164. 8. Alex Weingrod, "Recent Trends in Israeli Ethnicity," Ethnic and Racial Studies 2 (1979), 55-65. 9. Moshe Shokeid, "Perspektivah-antropologit 'al mashber hahinukh beveit sefer ezori," Megamot 26 (1980), 10-21. 10. Ephraim Yaar and Moshe Semyonov, "Hapa'ar ha'adati beveit hasefer uvesport leor hateoria shel mazavei zipiyot," Megamot 24 (1982). 11. Yohanan Peres, Yahasei 'edot beyisrael (Tel-Aviv: 1977). 12. Judith Shuval, "Emerging Patterns of Ethnic Strain in Israel," Social Forces 40, no. 4 (1962), 323-340. 13. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Absorption of Immigrants (London: 1954). 14. Joseph Ben-David, "Diyun," in Ofrah Cohen (ed.) Mizug galuyot (Jerusalem: 1969), 89-91. 15. Shlomo Deshen, "Ethnic Boundaries and Cultural Paradigms: The Case of Southern Tunisian Immigrants in Israel," Ethnos 4 (1976), 271-294. 16. Shlomo Svirsky, Lo nekhshalim ela menukhshalim (Haifa: 1981). 17. Sammy Smooha, Israel: Pluralism and Conflict (London and Henley: 1978). 18. Claude Levi-Strauss, Anthropologie structural (Paris: 1985); Jean Piaget, Le Structuralisme (Paris: 1968); see also Shmuel N. Eisenstadt and Miryam Curelaro, The Forms of Sociology (New York: 1976). 19. Jack Habib, 'Oni beyisrael (Jerusalem: 1976); Vered Kraus, Perceptions of Ethnic Differences (Jerusalem: 1976); Yehudah Paz, Self-images, Identity and Identification (Jerusalem: 1971). 20. Yonatan Shapiro, Hademokratiah beyisrael (Ramat Gan: 1977). 21. Eliezer Ben-Rafael, The Emergence of Ethnicity: Cultural Groups and Social Conflict in Israel (Westport and London: 1982). 22. Andre Chouraqui, Les Juifs d'Afrique du Nord (Paris: 1952), 62-63. 23. Ibid., 218-222. 24. Ben-Rafael, Emergence of Ethnicity, 36. 25. Michael Confine, "Yahadut zfon afrika," Mibifnim 16 (1953), 566-580. 26. Andre Chouraqui, La Condition juridique del'Israelite marocain (Paris: 1948), 1525. 27. See also David Cohen, "Les communautes juives des villes cotieres au Maroc entre 1880 et 1940," in Juifs du Maroc: Identite et dialogue (Paris: 1985), 175-185. 28. Moshe Shokeid, The Dual Heritage (New Brunswick and Oxford: 1985), 15-33. 29. Michael M. Laskier, "Toledo! hape'ilut haziyonit bikehilot maroko, tunisiyah vealgeriyah, 1897-1947," Skirah hodshit 29 (1982), 9-31. 30. Arnold Lewis, "Phantom Ethnicity: Oriental Jews in Israeli Society," in Alex Weingrod (ed.), Studies in Israeli Ethnicity: After the Ingathering (New York: 1985), 147. 31. Rivka Bar-Yosef, "Hamarokaim, rek'a habe'ayah," Molad 17/131 (1969), 247251. 32. Shlomo Deshen, "Israeli Judaism: Introduction to the Major Patterns," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 9 (1978), 141-169. 33. See descriptions in Ehud Ben-Ezer, Hamahzevah (Tel-Aviv: 1963). 34. Marx, "Alimut ishit." 35. CBS, Demographic Characteristics of the Population—Part 2 (Jerusalem: 1976). 36. Ibid. 37. Ben-Rafael, Emergence of Ethnicity, 90. 38. Hannah Ayalon, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, "Ethnicity, Class and Friendship Networks." In preparation. 39. Yoram Bilu, "The Benefits of Attenuation: Continuity and Change in Jewish Moroccan Ethnopsychology in Israel," in Alex Weingrod (ed.), Studies in Israeli Ethnicity: After the Ingathering (New York: 1985), 297-315. 40. Weingrod, "Recent Trends in Israeli Ethnicity," 55-66.

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41. Moshe Shokeid, "The Decline of Personal Endowment of Atlas Mountain Religious Leaders in Israel," Anthropological Quarterly 54, no. 4 (1979), 186-196. 42. Inbar and Adler, Ethnic Integration, 87-104. 43. See review in Pierre Van der Berghe, Race and Ethnicity (New York: 1970). 44. Ben-Rafael, Emergence of Ethnicity, 39. 45. Ernest Krausz, " 'Edah and Ethnic Group in Israel," Jewish Journal of Sociology 28 (1986), 5-18. 46. Hannah Ayalon, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, "Variations in Ethnic Identification Among Israeli Jews," Ethnic and Racial Studies 8, (1985), 389-407. 47. Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Ayda Dinya and Stephen Sharot, "Ethnic Discrimination and Prejudice in Israel." In preparation. 48. Inbar and Adler, Ethnic Integration, 63-69; Peres, Yahasei 'edot, 89. 49. Ben-Rafael, Emergence of Ethnicity, 102-103. 50. Yaakov Nahon, Megamot beta'asukah: hameimad ha'adati (Jerusalem: 1984), 126-134. 51. Ibid., 17. 52. Fanny Ginor, Pe'arim hevratiyim vekhalkaliyim beyisrael (Tel-Aviv: 1983), 117. 53. Ibid., 99. 54. Chaim Adler, "School Integration in the Context of the Development of Israel's Educational System," in Yehuda Amir and Shlomo Sharon (eds.), School Desegregation (Hillsdale and London: 1984), 21-45. 55. Hannah Ayalon, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, "The Impact of Stratification: Assimilation or Ethnic Solidarity." Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 1 (1988). 56. Hannah Ayalon, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, "Secularization and the Diminishing Decline of Religion," Review of Religious Research 27, no. 3 (1986), 192-207. 57. Ayalon, Ben-Rafael and Sharot, "Variations in Ethnic Identification." 58. Hannah Ayalon, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, "The Costs and Benefits of Ethnic Identification," British Journal of Sociology 37 (1986), 550-568. 59. Erik Cohen, "Black Panthers." 60. Hannah Ayalon, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, " 'Adatiut upolitikah: hebetim nishkahim," Megamot 30 (1987), 39-46. 61. See also Herzog, 'Adatiut politit.

The Arab Minority in Israel: Radicalization or Politicization? Sammy Smooha (UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA)

The Arab citizens of Israel within the pre-1967 borders numbered around 620,000 persons in 1985. They constituted one-seventh of the Israeli population of 4.1 million (excluding the 130,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem), close to one-third of all Arabs under Israeli control (2.1 million) and about one-seventh of all Palestinian Arabs (around 4.5 million). These demographic ratios serve to underline the fact that Israeli Arabs live in two conflicting worlds—Israel and the Palestinian people. Many Jewish Israelis believe (and fear) that over the past forty years Israeli Arabs have become increasingly radicalized, by which they mean more Palestinian in identity, supporters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and, as a result, hostile to the state and to Jews. This article seeks to contrast this thesis of Arab radicalization with an alternative view and to present the relevant data bearing on both. DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF THE ARAB MINORITY The Arabs are a significant and restive minority within the Jewish state for the following reasons.1 1. They are a territorially concentrated, indigenous group that feels firm ties with, and rights to, the land; that is growing steadily (on present indications there will be 1 million Arab citizens, one-fifth of all Israelis, by the end of the century); and that is becoming increasingly important electorally (they account for over ten percent of the eligible voters in a highly competitive multi-party system). 2. The Arabs are a permanent, non-assimilating minority, clearly distinguished from the Jews, and they possess all the institutions necessary to preserve a separate existence, the most essential being all-Arab local communities, schools, mass media and, of course, highly cohesive families. 3. As a working-class minority in a predominantly middle-class society, a politically peripheral minority in a highly centralized state and an Arabic-speaking minority amid a Hebrew-speaking majority, the Arabs lack the resources to compete 59

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with the Jews on an equal footing. As a result, they experience absolute and relative deprivation. 4. The Arabs are a dissident minority. They reject two crucial aspects of the fundamental ideology of the Israeli regime: the mission of the state vis-a-vis the Jewish world and its stance in the dispute with the Arab world. The Arabs object to Israel's raison d'etre—the implementation of the goals of Zionism—which involves bringing to Israel as many Jews as possible, maintaining its nature as a Jewish and Zionist state and defending the Jewish cause all over the world. They are understandably opposed to the idea that Israel is the homeland of all Jews in the world, not just of its Jewish and Arab residents, and that within it only the Jews enjoy the right to national self-determination. Arabs also resist the concept that Israel exists for the sake of the Jewish people and that its official institutions, symbols, emblems and holidays are Jewish. They want Arabic to be as widely accepted as Hebrew, and they would have Israel do away with the Law of Return, unrestricted Jewish immigration, Jewish settlement in Arab areas and the precedence given to the Jewish sector in development programs. In Jewish eyes Arab rejection of Israel as a Jewish-Zionist state implies total negation of the state's very existence. The Arabs likewise oppose the Jewish consensus on the Israeli-Arab conflict and support a solution based on a PLO-headed Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This is usually understood to mean Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 boundaries, the redivision of Jerusalem, recognition of the PLO and the right of repatriation for the Arab refugees. Such a solution is anathema to the vast majority of Jews, who regard it as evidence of Arab dissidence and even disloyalty. 5. As far as the state and the Jews are concerned, the Arabs tend to be seen as a hostile minority, sympathetic to the enemy and a potential fifth column if not effectively contained. The authorities base their treatment of the Arabs on the assumption of their potential disloyalty and, thus, exempt them from compulsory military service (except for the Druse, who are subject to the draft, and the Bedouin, who may volunteer for the regular army) and so place them under close surveillance. Arab dissidence provides Jews with prima facie evidence of Arab disloyalty and legitimizes Jewish control. This profile of the Arab minority provides the basis for the Arab radicalization thesis. THE ARAB RADICALIZATION THESIS It is commonly assumed that radicali/ation (hakzanah, in Hebrew) has been the dominant trend in the political orientation and behavior of Israeli Arabs. The Jewish public, students of Arab affairs and other observers point to a rapid process of radicalization among Arabs since 1967.2 Deep-seated Arab extremism is found in a steadily increasing range of expressions and actions against the state. These bear witness to a change in the majority from passive loyalty to reluctant compliance and, in some respects, to active and violent dissidence. The radicalization thesis has been articulated and made popular by Eli Rekhess,

The Arab Minority in Israel: Radicalization or Politicization?

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who holds that since 1967 Arabs have steadily become Palestinian in both their national identity and in their approach to Israel. In consequence, they now reject their minority status, have extended their struggle for equal civil rights to a demand for national rights and have taken increasingly anti-Israeli stands.3 And the Arab intelligentsia has become greatly involved in the new militancy.4 Although in his most recent writings Rekhess avoids the term "radicalization," he continues to focus on the factors leading to Arab extremism. The major internal factors at work here, in his view, are rapid population growth, which makes the Arabs feel both more powerful and more in need; the widening socioeconomic gap between Arabs and Jews; and the continuing policy of neglect toward the Arab minority. Together with the dramatic rise of the Palestinians, these changes have lent the Arab villages in Israel the status of national political centers,5 with Rakah (the Arab-dominated Communist party) and the PLO their champions.6 Rekhess's underlying assumption that modernization has promoted radicalization among the Arabs was earlier posited by Peres and Landau. Peres explained that modernization drew Arabs closer to the Jews culturally and socially but set them apart nationally. The periodic eruptions of the Israeli-Arab conflict fueled Arab nationalism among Israeli Arabs and weakened the Israeli aspects of their identity. The more educated, urbanized and younger the Arabs were, the more radical they became.7 Landau followed suit, stressing the idea that political alienation among Arabs had been intensifying since 1967.8 That the traditional (local, hamula ["clan"] and sectarian) identities are negatively correlated with Palestinian national identity and positively correlated with Israeli civil identity is the main finding of a 1977 survey, conducted by Mi'ari, of a sample of 292 Arab university graduates. He concludes: Assuming that traditional loyalties will continue to be weakened as a result of the process of modernization and social change, I expect that in the future Israeli identity will also continue to weaken, while Palestinian identity will continue to be strengthened. If this hypothesis is confirmed, one must raise a serious question about the future of Arab-Jewish "coexistence" in Israel.9

Although for this trend of thought modernization is the primary process and Arab radicalization is its by-product, from the perspective that stresses the fundamental importance of the colonial experience radicalization is inherent in the Arabs' status. For Zureik, the emergence of an anti-colonial, liberation consciousness and the formation of a resistance movement are gradual, but inevitable, processes in a settler society like Israel. It is only a matter of time, in this view, before increasing politicization of the Arabs directly challenges and confronts the repressive Israeli regime. Meanwhile, radicalization is evident in "identification with the Communist party, an attempt to establish a nationalist movement, and an increase in the Arab intelligentsia's involvement in the political affairs of the Arab community."10 For his part, Nakhleh criticizes "radicalization," finding it still too compromising, petit bourgeois and tacitly accepting of the "occupier's paradigm" of the Arabs as a minority in a Jewish state. He feels that the Arabs have already reached a stage that enables them to shift to a revolutionary, rejectionist, "liberation-prone mentality."11

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Arab radicalization is basic also to Lustick's analysis, which spells out three major challenges to the previous system of control over the Arabs. These are the steady erosion of traditional beliefs and behavior, the Palestinization of the group identity and the crystallization of politically militant organizations such as the Communist party and the Sons of the Village movement.12 Radicalization is unavoidable in the long run because the authorities are unlikely to change their policy of control and because even a solution of the Palestinian problem—either by annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip or by the creation of a separate state—will, paradoxically, radicalize the Arabs in Israel. This result would be caused, in this view, by the increase in their relative deprivation (in comparison to the ample opportunities open to their brethren in a new Palestinian state) and Israel's JewishZionist character (due to Jewish fear of its assimilation into the region).13 Radicalization is also seen by many as a direct offshoot of the post-1967 occupation. The reunion with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the intensification of contacts with them and the gradual blurring of the Green Line have, it is argued, steadily diminished the differences between Israeli Arabs and other Palestinians. If Benvenisti is correct in his conclusion that the incorporation of the territories is irreversible, then the critical division within Greater Israel is that separating Jews from Palestinians, regardless of whether the latter are citizens or aliens.14 All Palestinians share a common destiny and national orientation, therefore, and are becoming increasingly hostile to the state and to Jews. Despite my awareness of its merits, especially its keen grasp of the gravity of the problem, its plausibility and its attractiveness, I reject the Arab radicalization thesis. In a series of studies and publications since 1976, I have attempted to develop and empirically confirm an alternative view—the Arab politicization thesis.15

THE ARAB POLITICIZATION THESIS The Arab politicization thesis begins with a critique of the Arab radicalization thesis. 1. The radicalization thesis is overly deterministic. Arab radicalization is assumed to be inescapable and persistent: Arab-Jewish relations, in this view, are bound to create strains and eventually collapse as a result of the continued conflict with the Arab world, institutional discrimination in the Jewish-Zionist state and internal developments (e.g., Arab modernization and demographic growth and Jewish drift to the nationalist right and toward hardened intransigence). In contrast, the politicization thesis leaves the course of development open and stresses two overall historical processes that have positively influenced Arab-Jewish coexistence since the 1960s: the democratization of Israeli society and advancing rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world. 2. The radicalization thesis applies a blanket maximalist definition in its analysis of extremism. The recent discrediting of moderate leaders, the general strikes, the rejection of the Jewish-Zionist character of the state, the emphasis on Palestinian national identity, the endorsement of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and the support for the PLO are unjustifiably defined as indicators of radicalism rather than


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as possibly the legitimate protest or dissent of a national minority in a democratic state. As against this, the politicization thesis adopts a narrower and minimalist approach, defining Arab radicalism in such terms as the rejection of Israel's right to exist, advocacy of violence and terror and support for a Palestinian or binational state in place of Israel. 3. The radicalization thesis mistakenly singles out only one trend among the Arabs, as if other counterbalancing developments had not occurred. The politicization thesis corrects this by examining radicalization in relation to other trends in the Arab response that run counter to it. According to this thesis, politicization rather than radicalization is the key to understanding the Arab situation and the processes of change. As Arabs become increasingly politicized they have availed themselves of the political means to participate on an equal basis in Israeli society. Politicization is thus analyzed as the major response to the structural contradictions present in the Arabs' situation in Israel: they are simultaneously both inside and outside Israeli society and politics. They constitute a dissident yet controlled minority, a vulnerable yet rising group, whose capacity for adjustment is still undetermined. The Arabs face multiple handicaps: lower status in a rapidly crystallizing class structure, insufficient westernization in a transplanted European society, being nonJewish and non-Zionist in a society designed for Jews and Zionists as well as being regarded as security risks in a state under siege. All these impediments make the Arabs as a group the single largest threat to the status quo in Israel and the proponents of the most radical change. To maintain law and order, the authorities have subjected Arabs to effective control ever since the establishment of the state. Control is a machinery of everdiminishing efficiency based on economic dependence and the political regulation of Arab behavior.16 It is inherently subject to erosion because Israel is basically democratic. By the 1980s, control had lost so much of its effectiveness that many of the mechanisms expounded by Lustick no longer apply (for instance, most Arab leaders today are not co-opted). How one defines the problem of Arab-Jewish coexistence varies in accordance with one's starting point. For the Jews, it is how to contain the restive and dissident Arabs; for the Arabs, it is how to effect change without being branded disloyal; for the system as a whole, it is how to reconcile the Jewish-Zionist character of the state with political democracy while not jeopardizing national security. The main question for analysis is whether it is realistic to expect a peaceful transition from a situation of control over the Arabs to one in which the Arabs are accepted as a new group in legitimate (coalition) politics and can benefit from the arrangements of compromise and partnership (consociationalism). To advocate the politicization thesis does not mean to ignore the existence of countervailing forces and divergent trends in Arab-Jewish relations. Arab politicization involves, at one and the same time, Israelization, factionalization and increasing militancy. "Israelization" is reflected in the Arabs' growing bilingualism and biculturalism, their acceptance of Israeli standards and styles and their view of themselves as an integral part of Israel.

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Factionalization means the internal division of the Arabs into four political streams: accommodationists, reservationists, oppositionists and rejectionists. The accommodationists accept the status quo, seek concessions through the system and draw on the dominant Zionist establishment for ideological and organizational support. As non-partisans, the reservationists are the least crystallized ideologically and organizationally; they are critical but ready to cooperate with the authorities through such semi-independent bodies as the Committee of Heads of Arab Local Councils. The oppositionists approve of Arab-Jewish coexistence but insist on radical change; they are most attracted to the articulate ideologies and leaderships of the Israeli Communist party (Rakah) and the Progressive List for Peace (PLP). The rejectionists negate Israel and their minority status in it, are inspired by the official PLO ideology and follow the Sons of the Village movement, which supports the Rejection Front within the Arab world. In view of their growing Israelization and factionalization, increasing militancy for the overwhelming majority of Arabs is not the rejection of Israeliness, but rather a challenge to the status quo and is an attempt to negotiate new terms of coexistence with the Jews. The relative validity of the rival theses (radicalization as against politicization) will be tested by examining changes in the Arab political response over the years in the following four spheres: orientation (political attitudes to Israel and to Israeli Jews), leadership, voting behavior and protest. Orientation Data on Arab political attitudes were obtained from three representative surveys of the adult Arab population 18 years and older (men and women living in Israel within the Green Line, excluding residents of East Jerusalem but including Druse). The 1976 survey included 656 individuals; the 1980 survey, 1,140; the 1985 survey, 1,203. The comparability of these surveys makes it possible to examine trends for the decade 1976-85. By repeating the same representative sampling as well as questions and typology construction, straightforward comparisons can be made between both summary measures and separate questions.17 The best way to ascertain the trend in Arab political orientation is by comparing the distributions in the three surveys of the four political orientations just cited. The operational definition of each type follows: 1. Arab respondents who concur on all of these views are classified as accommodationists: (a) those who consider the term "Israeli" as an appropriate self-description, (b) those who oppose protest actions abroad as a legitimate means of struggle and (c) those who oppose the use of general strikes. 2. Arabs who subscribe to the following opinions fall into the reservationist type: (a) those who do not agree that the Zionist movement is racist, (b) those who do not endorse protest actions abroad and (c) those who oppose unlicensed demonstrations. 3. Arabs who take the following stands are considered oppositionists: (a) those

The Arab Minority in Israel: Radicalization or Politicization? Table 1.

65

Arab Orientation Types, 1976-85 (percentage)

Types

1976

1980

1985

Total

Accommodationists

13.1

15.3

12.7

13.8

Reservationists

29.5

39.1

36.2

35.9

Oppositionists

43.9

39.9

40.3

40.9

Rejectionists

13.5

5.7

10.8

9.4

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

N

607

1,133

1,190

2,930

Notes: X* = 44.40794

df = 6

p< .0000

who agree that the Zionist movement is racist, (b) those who favor protest actions abroad and (c) those who do not oppose unlicensed demonstrations. 4. Arabs who espouse the following outlooks are categorized as rejectionists: (a) those who deny Israel's right to exist, (b) those who endorse unlicensed demonstrations and (c) those who do not oppose the use of violence in the struggle to improve conditions for Israeli Arabs. The comparison of the distribution of these political types during the 1976-85 period reveals that the two militant types dropped in percentage from 1976 to 1980 and rose from 1980 to 1985 (Table 1). Despite the more recent rise, the 1985 militancy level is still below the 1976 baseline. More specifically, the oppositionists shrank from 44 percent in 1976 to 40 percent in both 1980 and 1985*; the rejectionists diminished sharply, from 13.5 to 6 percent, but increased again, to 11 percent. Overall, militancy (i.e., oppositionist and rejectionist orientations) amounted to 57 percent in 1976, 46 percent in 1980 and 51 percent in 1985. These figures do not substantiate the existence of growing Arab radicalization. The confirmation of this conclusion by further tests supports both its independence of the specific measure and its validity. One of these tests utilized a comprehensive index of orientation based on the factor scores of all relevant items common to the three surveys. Although the typology draws only on seven items to construct preconceived, distinct and real types, the index indiscriminately adds up all the available data. The result—a decline in militancy during 1976-80 and its rise during 1980-85 (Table 2)—is still unaffected by the procedure. Another test applied (in contrast to the previous one, a very refined measure) was a radicalism index. A score of 1 was assigned to the endorsement of any of the following views: denial of Israel's right to exist, support for unlicensed demonstrations and support for the use of violence. An index ranging from 0 to 3 was created. It was found that 47 percent of the Arabs scored 0 in 1976, compared with 63 * Percentages appearing in the text are generally expressed in round figures. For exact data consult the tables (Ed.).

66

Sammy Smooha Table 2. Arab Orientation Index, 1976-85" Orientation index

1976

1985

1980

-2.68 to -1.26

10.2

10.8

9.2

-1.27 to 0.07

35.1

43.9

38.7

1.16

41.3

37.8

41.3

1.17 to 2.15

13.4

7.5

10.8

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

N

608

1,140

1,203

Mean

0.0794

-0.1049

0.0602

Standard deviation

0.9943

0.8912

0.9008

0.08 to

Notes: X2 = 26.60229 a

df = 6

p < .0002

The higher the score on the index, the more radical is the orientation.

percent in both 1980 and 1985; those scoring 2 to 3 points amounted to 23.5 percent, 10 percent and 14 percent in the respective years (Table 3). These figures do not support the thesis of Arab radicalization. There was no consistent growth in radical views over the years. For instance, the proportion of Arabs denying Israel's right to exist dropped from 20.5 percent in 1976 to 11 percent in 1980 and rose to 18 percent in 1985. Similarly, unwillingness to have Jewish friends decreased from 42.5 percent in 1976 to 30.7 percent in 1980 and increased to 36.7 percent in 1985 (Table 4). National self-identification provides another good measure. The radicalization thesis predicts that Arab identity is becoming more Palestinian and less Israeli with time. The survey data, however, show an intriguing pattern. In response to a question offering seven terms of identity, 57.5 percent of the Arabs in 1976 selected terms with a Palestinian component, 54.5 percent did so in 1980 and 68 percent did

Table 3.

Arab Radicalism Index, 1976-85

Radicalism Index

1976

1980

1985

0 (least radical)

47.1

62.7

62.6

1

29.5

27.8

23.1

2

19.3

7.3

9.8

4.2

2.3

4.5

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

N

607

1,130

1,190

3 (most radical)

Holes: X? - 90.23889

df = 6

p < .0000

67


Table 4. Selected Radical Views, 1976-85 Radical Views

1976

1980

1985

Deny Israel's right to exist

20.5

11.0

17.6

Favor without reservations unlicensed demonstrations to improve Arab conditions

17.1

7.0

10.8

Favor without reservations use of violence to improve Arab conditions

17.9

7.5

8.1

Unwilling to have Jewish friends

42.5

30.7

36.7

so in 1985 (Table 5). But the Palestinization of identity has failed to diminish the Israeli dimension. In 1976 data show that 67 percent of the Arabs chose terms with an Israeli component; in 1980, 74 percent did so and in 1985 the figure was 71 percent. When national identification is divided into three categories, it becomes readily evident that the non-Palestinian-Israeli identification and the non-IsraeliPalestinian identification declined from 1976 to 1985, whereas the Israeli-Palestinian identification rose dramatically (from 25 to 39 percent). Contrary to the radicalization thesis, then, the Arabs seem to be heading toward a stance that accepts and synthesizes both dimensions of their identity rather than substituting the Palestinian for the Israeli. This is exactly the approach of the two most important political forces within the Arab population in Israel—Rakah and the PLP. In their publications and public statements, both use the term "Palestinians [Palestinian Arabs] in Israel" or derivative notions that combine Israeli and Palestinian components. A final summary test was one estimating the extent to which the year of the survey makes it possible to predict orientation. If the radicalization thesis is correct, then the more recent the survey, the more militant will be the Arab orientation. It turns out that, on the contrary, the year of survey does not have any predictive value (Table 6). As shown for the 1985 data, community membership and the effects of land expropriation are the best predictors of Arab orientation. Additional clues as to the general trend can be gleaned from an examination of the changes in the orientation of selected Arab population groups. Contrary to the Table 5. Arab National Self-Identity, 1976-85 1976

1980

1985

42.5

45.4

32.1

Israeli Palestinian (Israeli Palestinian, Palestinian in Israel)

24.6

28.8

38.7

Non-Israeli Palestinian (Palestinian Arab, Palestinian)

32.9

25.7

29.2

Terms of Identity Define yourself in one of the following terms: Non-Palestinian Israeli (Israeli, Israeli Arab, Arab)

68

Sammy Smooha Table 6. Predictors of Arab Orientation Index, 1976-85 Predictor

N

r

R

Beta

Community status (Druse and Northern bedouin vs. others)

2,947

-.42

.42

-.33263

Effect of land expropriations

2,325

-.35

.49

-.26184

Education

2,930

.15

.50

.07741

1980 survey

2,947

-.09

.51

-.13411

Size of locality

2,947

-.22

.52

-.09178

Religious observance

2,939

.09

.52

.06708

1985 survey

2,947

.05

.53

-.06419

Age

2,897

-.08

.53

-.04138

Gender

2,947

.00

.53

-.03781

view proffered by the radicalization thesis, the trend is far from being uniform or similar. The Druse, Negev Bedouin and Christians have become less militant from 1976 to 1985, whereas northern Bedouin have become more militant and the majority of non-Bedouin Moslems have maintained a stable position (Table 7). Education by itself does not produce any special effect (Table 8), but it does when in combination with other factors. For instance, Arabs who are 46 years old or older have 0-4 years of schooling and live in localities of fewer than five thousand inhabitants have become more moderate (Table 9). On the other hand, there was an overall rise in the proportion of rejectionists (14.5 percent in 1976, 4 percent in 1980 and 21 percent in 1985) among the contrasting group (i.e., 18-35 years old, 13 or more years of schooling and living in localities of five thousand or more). Several factors can be suggested to account for the trend in Arab orientation. The greater moderation in the 1980 survey compared to the 1976 survey could be a result of one or a combination of three new factors: the waning effect of the 1976 Land Day strike, fear of the Likud government and the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Conversely, the greater militancy in the 1985 survey compared to the 1980 survey could be attributed to the diminution of these moderating factors and the addition of two new radicalizing ones: a return to religion and Israel's Lebanon War. There was a dramatic return to religion among Israeli Arabs during the 1980-85 period. Some 18 percent of the Arabs said that they had returned to religion during the past five years; 52 percent reported either their own return or that of a close kin (a sibling, a spouse, a son or a daughter). Personal return to religion is very low among Christians (only 5 percent) and higher than average among Moslems (22 percent). When it takes a fundamentalist twist, religiosity alienates Arabs from Jews, as seems to be the case among women in the study, especially Moslem women (Table 10). The return to religion, more specifically a rise in Islamic fundamentalism, explains part of the rise in the militancy of the Moslem majority.

Table 7. Community Druse 1976 1980 1985 Northern Bedouin 1976 1980 1985 Negev Bedouin 1976 1980 1985 Christians 1976 1980 1985 Non-Bedouin Moslems 1976 1980 1985

Arab Orientation Types by Community, 1976-85

Accommodationists

Reservationists

Oppositionists

34.8 41.3 42.2

40.6 41.3 37.1

24.6 16.5 19.0

0.0 0.9 1.7

109 116

30.2

42.8 44.4 47.6

20.6 16.7 26.8

6.4 5.6 9.8

44 54 82

21.4 42.5

48.1 39.7 38.1

28.4 9.6 13.1

73

49.8 40.4 42.4

10.2 3.4 6.4

114 203 172

47.4 45.2 45.0

16.2 6.8 13.0

362 694 736

33.3 15.9

2.1 8.2 9.5

39.3

9.3

30.6

13.8 11.0

42.4 40.1

10.0 11.0

26.5

8.4

37.0 33.6

Rejectionists

N

55

32 84

70

Sammy Smooha Table 8.

Education Primary 1976 1980 1985 Secondary 1976 1980 1985 Post-secondary 1976 1980 1985

Arab Orientation Types by Education, 1976-85

A ccommodationists

Reservationists

Oppositionists

Rejectionists

N

13.3 16.8 14.2

28.6 40.7 38.5

43.9 36.7 37.5

14.2 5.8 9.9

469 762 678

15.4 13.4

10.1

36.9 36.5 36.0

38.0 44.0 42.6

9.6 6.1 11.4

94 277 378

7.1 7.5 13.1

20.9 34.4 26.2

56.9 53.8 48.4

15.0 4.3 12.3

42

93

122

For the Arabs, Israel's war in Lebanon was a radicalizing issue. In their eyes, it was the only war that Israel has fought against the Palestinians, not the Arab countries. Its declared goal, to liquidate the PLO, was considered utterly illegitimate. Also totally rejected was the war's hidden intention—the consolidation of Israel's control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which it was thought would also result from the disintegration of the PLO abroad. Arabs who reported adverse effects of the war on their attitudes toward the state were more militant than the average (Table 11). These developments may well explain the growing moderation of the Christians during 1976-85. The protracted civil war in Lebanon since 1975 and the rise in Islamic fundamentalism have exposed the vulnerability of the Christians as a minority among Arabs both in the Arab world and in Israel. To conclude, the data from the three surveys do not confirm a consistent trend of radicalization or growth in rejectionism and extremism among Israeli Arabs. Leadership The conditions that followed Israel's establishment were not conducive to the nurturing of independent Arab leadership. First, the mass Arab exodus from western Palestine left those remaining virtually without national and organizational leaders. Second, the contraction of the Arab class structure, as a result of the massive departure of the upper and middle classes, deprived Arabs of an elite from which a new public leadership might be recruited. Third, the Arabs who stayed behind were disproportionately less urban, less educated and more accommodating than those who had left. Again, the Arabs were very much aware of their vulnerability as they abruptly ceased being a majority and became a suspected minority. Finally, in addition to the hardships of disorientation and psychological readjustment, Israeli Arabs were faced by problems of sheer economic survival and a dearth of basic services after the collapse of their major institutions in 1948.

Table 9.

Arab Orientation Types by Selected Population Groups, 1976-85

Group Women 1976

1980 1985

46—55 years old 1976

1980 1985

18-35 years old, 13+ years of schooling, living in localities of 5,000+ 1976 1980 1985 46+ years old, 0-4 years of schooling, living in localities of fewer than 5,000 1976 1980 1985

Accommodationists

Reservationists

Oppositionists

Rejectionists

N

10.5 15.1 12.5

27.2 43.0 36.1

44.0 36.2 40.9

18.3

305 549 543

8.7

34.0 48.7 43.4

40.1 32.2 35.7

17.1

14.8 14.7

0.0 4.4 4.8

22.7 31.1 17.7

62.8 60.0 56.5

14.5

6.6

40.0 45.3 46.2

41.4 28.1 28.5

21.9 16.9

5.6 10.5

4.3 6.2

4.4 21.0

69 115 129

24 45 62

12.0

99

4.7 8.5

128 130

Table 10. Returned to Religion in Past Five Years

Arab Orientation Types by Return to Religion, 1985

Accommodationists

Reservationists

Oppositionists

Rejectionists

N

12.7

36.2

40.3

10.8

1,190

No

9.8 13.4

39.3 35.5

36.0 41.1

15.0 9.9

968

Women Yes No

10.8 13.0

36.6 36.0

32.3 42.5

20.4 8.5

447

Moslem women Yes No

10.5 9.6

34.9 34.4

32.6 42.5

22.1 10.5

86 323

7.4 9.4

41.7 34.7

38.9 43.0

12.0 12.9

108 372

TOTAL Total Yes

Moslem men Yes No

214

93

Table 11. Arab Orientation Types by Experienced Impact of Israel's War in Lebanon, 1985 Reaction to Israel's War in Lebanon

Accommodationists

Reservationists

Oppositionists

Rejectionists

N

12.7

36.2

40.3

10.8

1,190

Adversely and considerably affected own attitude toward the State of Israel

5.1

33.0

47.2

14.7

661

Weakened own belief in Israeli democracy Took part in protest against the war

7.1 4.0

33.8 19.0

45.9 53.4

13.2 23.5

790 247

Total

74

Sammy Smooha

The vacuum created by the war was quickly filled by the Jewish authorities. To control the Arab minority military government was imposed, including the demarcation of closed areas, travel restrictions, detentions, curfews and close surveillance. Proletarization, which made the Arabs economically dependent on the Jews, further inhibited the emergence of an autonomous elite. Less visible but no less effective was the conscious policy of cultivating a dependent leadership and of discouraging non-accommodation. Two major sub-types of accommodating leadership were singled out and promoted. These were the notables and the functionaries. The notables were hamula heads or other village strongmen. They were informally recognized, and their traditional intermediary role (wasta) between the villagers and the outside world was partially retained. Underlying the support given the hamula elders by the authorities was the desire to curb Arab nationalism and to facilitate Jewish domination; it was supposedly easier to control tradition-bound, small and local collectivities than to contain frustrated, nationalistic, Westernized individuals. Together with the retention of traditionalist hamula elders, a new leadership cadre was recruited. Separate departments for Arab affairs were established in various government ministries, in the Histadrut and in the major political parties. They aimed to gather information, to monitor developments, to intercede, to appease, to administer and to win the votes of the Arab minority. These Jewishheaded Arab departments enlisted Arab functionaries to staff low-ranking positions and to do the work in the field. The most important public figures in this category are today Knesset members (MKs) affiliated with the Zionist parties, pro-establishment Arab heads of local authorities, high-ranking officials in the Histadrut and Arab representatives of the labor parties. The Arab leadership in the 1950s and 1960s had all the characteristics of an effectively controlled minority. First, it was accountable to the Jewish authorities rather than to the Arab masses, being selected, appointed or maintained by the Jews, and it derived its power by mediating the exchange of Arab loyalty and the supply of manpower, lands and votes for protection and benefits. It was moderate, and reconciled itself to, and encouraged Arabs to accept, minority status in a Jewish-Zionist state. It worked through the system to improve conditions for Arabs, avoiding protest and extra-parliamentary politics. Furthermore, it was totally ethnic, dealing only with Arabs or Arab affairs, and it lacked any ambition to achieve influential posts in Israeli society as a whole or to have a say in state or Jewish matters. Not even aspiring to general leadership, it was satisfied with the secondary rank afforded by minority leadership. Finally, it was devoid of qualities that a minority in the process of socialization into the Israeli political culture might hold in high regard: formal education, ideological articulateness, statesmanship, personal example, assertiveness and balanced accountability to minority and majority. At the same time, an independent national Arab leadership could not establish itself. The al-Ard group, composed of professionals, writers and other nationalist elements, was blocked by the authorities. The remaining leaders of the Arab National League, the Arab Communist party of the 1940s, joined Maki (the Jewish


75

Communist party) in 1949. These militant leaders, the most prominent among whom were Emil Habibi, Tawfiq Toubi, Saliba Hamis and Emil Tuma, could not gain wider acceptance in the Arab sector as long as they were functionaries within a party remaining under tight Jewish control. During the first two decades of statehood, the initial obstacles to independent, non-accommodationist leadership substantially diminished. After overcoming the early psychological and existential hardships, the Arabs took the road of politicization. Concomitantly, their class structure gained greater depth and complexity with the rise of a sizable middle stratum of intelligentsia, self-employed professionals and businessmen who soon became available for recruitment as public leaders. Growing politicization and the expanding pool of qualified persons produced a number of changes in the leadership of the 1970s. A considerable decline took place in the standing of the dependent leadership as hamula elders lost much of their power and functionaries lost much of their credibility and following. Some of the veterans, however, managed to retain influence by becoming more independent of the Zionist establishment, more responsive to Arab needs and more militant. At the same time, there was a marked rise in autonomous leadership and, overall, the new men possessed better qualifications than their predecessors, being younger, better educated, more articulate, more ideological and less opportunistic. By the mid-1980s, the factionalization of the Arab leadership into four major types paralleled and shaped a similar differentiation among the population at large, as revealed in the surveys. The Jewish parties and the Histadrut provided a solid organizational base for a new group of accommodationist Arab leaders, who were far removed from the traditional, co-opted elders and notables. Nouwaf Matsalha of the Labour party, the top Arab leader in the Histadrut who became a Knesset Member in 1988, best represents this new breed of Arab leaders. Many unaffiliated leaders have also come to play an active role. Some used to be associated with the Jewish parties; others have chosen to be non-partisan because they distrust both the Zionist and Communist establishments. Nimr Ibrahim Houssein, the mayor of Shefar'am and chairman of the Committee of Heads of Arab Local Councils, is a typical leader of this stripe. He tries to retain an independent posture and at the same time to be acceptable to both the Jewish establishment and its Arab opposition. But Knesset Member Abdul Wahab Darawsha is the man who cast himself into a model of this emergent reservationist Arab leader. He broke away from the Labour party in January 1988 to found the Democratic Arab Party which successfully won a seat in the Knesset late that year. His innovative style is well evident in his stated goal to make the new party eligible for inclusion in coalition governments and to make Israeli Arabs a fully legitimate pressure group within the Israeli political system and sharing national power. Rakah and PLP provide a broad base for oppositionist leaders. Rakah operates directly and through many front organizations, the most prominent among these being the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (DFPE). The rise of the PLP in 1984 introduced yet another variant. Unlike the Rakah leadership, the PLP leaders are nationalist, not bound by communism, Soviet hegemony or secularism. Because of their ideology and tactics, however, both the PLP and DFPE are rejected by the

76

Sammy Smooha

Zionist establishment and find themselves in permanent opposition. On the other hand, employing the same leadership style and appealing to the same Arab constituency, the two groups compete intensely and the hostility between them is fierce. The emergence of the Sons of the Village movement and the Progressive National movement as successors to the outlawed al-Ard movement has brought with it a new generation of rejectionist leaders. They operate only in certain localities and in each university because the authorities do not let them set up statewide organizations. (An attempt to form a national coordinating body was declared illegal in early 1981.) During the 1980s, the Sons of the Village movement split into a number of factions, and its leaders have faded from public view and are less influential. At the same time, a new kind of rejectionist leader has developed in conjunction with the rise in Islamic fundamentalism. These leaders are well organized in certain villages, maintain numerous self-help community projects and publish an ideological journal, but so far most have been careful not to antagonize the authorities. Their rejectionist orientation entails the negation of Israel's Western, Jewish and Zionist attributes; the repudiation of Moslem minority status in a dhimmi-rnled society; and a desire to replace the Jewish by an Islamic state. Their clashes with the atheist, anti-clerical Communists; with the secularist, nationalist Sons of the Village adherents; and with the non-practicing Moslem and Christian rank and file are already evident.18 To overcome this far-reaching factionalism, a "supreme follow-up committee" was formed in 1984 to deliberate and decide matters of common interest to all Arabs in Israel. This committee consists of all Arab-elected public figures from all political parties: MKs, members of the executive of the Committee of Heads of Arab Local Councils, members of the top governing bodies of the Histadrut and representatives on the board of the Schoolteachers' Association. Although Druse leaders do not participate, the "supreme follow-up committee" is, nonetheless, the most representative Arab body ("the Arab parliament in Israel"). It was this committee that called for the Equality Day strike on June 24, 1987. Through this body the Arab leadership, despite internal splits, has demonstrated both its ability to reach consensus and concerted action on questions of civil rights and equality and its firm control of the Arab population, as evidenced in the peaceful nature of the mass strike in June 1987.19 All the features of Arab politicization are to be found in these changing patterns of leadership. The Israelization of the new leaders of all types is reflected in their growing resemblance to Jewish leaders in background, political culture and style (e.g., younger in age, more educated, verbally fluent and ideologically committed). With the exception of the rejectionists, they endeavor to enter Israeli politics as an organized interest group and to avail themselves fully of all avenues opened to them by Israeli democracy. Factionalization is also quite substantial. By 1988 accommodationist Arabs were represented by leaders affiliated to the Zionist establishment, reservationist Arabs by the new Darawsha-led Democratic Arab Party, oppositionist Arabs by both Rakah and the Progressive List for Peace, and rejectionist Arabs by activists in the Sons of the Village Movement. Israelization and factionalism have channeled the Arab leadership into militancy


77

rather than radicalization. All types of Arab leaders in the 1980s are more militant than their pre-1960s counterparts had been: they are, by and large, not co-opted, are insistent on Arab rights and are prepared to voice protest; they also try hard to reconcile their Palestinian and Israeli ties and loyalties. With the exception of the marginal rejectionist leaders who are truly extremist and hostile to Israel, Arab leaders want to be an integral, equal part of Israeli society and politics. Voting Behavior In the 1984 national elections, Arabs accounted for 239,229 of the 2,654,613 (9 percent) eligible voters in Israel. Because 85 percent of these Israeli Arabs live in wholly Arab localities (the remainder live in predominantly Jewish towns), it is possible to trace Arab voting behavior with considerable certainty. Within certain limitations, the Arab vote reflects the underlying trends in Arab opinion, as demonstrated by the correlation between the reported voting in the survey with the attitudes toward Jews and the State of Israel. Arab voting choices, however, are restricted in two crucial ways. One is the conspicuous absence of an independent, Arab national party, owing in no small measure to countermeasures taken by the authorities, who fear such a party would serve as a source of unrest and as a potential stronghold of Palestinian nationalism. An attempt to form a national Arab party in the early 1960s by the radical al-Ard movement was finally declared illegal by the courts in 1965. Arabs who are oppositionist or rejectionist in orientation are not offered the option of voting for a radical, Palestinian national party. Also missing before 1988 was an independent, integrationist, Arab or ArabJewish political party that can fit into the mainstream of Israeli coalition politics. Rakah and the PLP are considered outside the national consensus and therefore ineligible for membership in coalition governments. Unlike non-Zionist Orthodox Jews, who can support Agudat Israel, accommodationist and reservationist Arabs lacked the option during the 1948-84 period of voting for a predominantly Arab party that would fight for their equality, take part in coalition politics and extract meaningful concessions while maintaining a low profile on Zionism and on the Palestinian question. Arab voters in Knesset elections can choose between three types of election lists: Zionist parties, Arab lists affiliated with Zionist parties and non-Zionist parties. Of the Zionist parties, eight appeal to the Arab vote. Arab lists are headed by dignitaries associated with Jewish parties; whereas the Communists (Maki, Rakah or DFPE) and, in 1984, the PLP as well—all mixed Arab-Jewish lists—constitute the non-Zionist parties. Analysis of the Arab vote for the entire 1949-84 period reveals the following patterns.20 First, Arab participation in Knesset elections is very high, almost as high as the Jewish rate. In 1984, of eligible Arab voters, 74 percent went to the polls (compared with the national average of 79 percent), clearly signifying the Arab desire to take part in, and influence (rather than abstain from), Israeli politics. In fact, even the PLO usually urges Israeli Arabs not to stay away, but to vote for the non-Zionist lists (in 1984, for the DFPE and PLP). The call of the Sons of the Village to boycott elections is not taken seriously by the Arab public at large.

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Sammy Smooha

There has been, however, a slow but steady decline in the Arab participation rate since the high point of 85 percent in the 1959 elections; since 1965 the Arab voting rate has been lower than the national average. The drop is probably a direct outcome of the heightened politicization of the Arabs, reflecting their frustration at the narrowness of their voting choice as compared with the wide range available to Jewish voters. Thus, when the PLP emerged in 1984, Arab participation rose from the low point of 70 percent in 1981 to 74 percent. Second, there has been a consistent drop since the 1959 elections in the proportion of Arab votes for Arab lists affiliated with the Zionist establishment (from 58.5 percent in 1959 to 13 percent in 1981, see Table 12). All these Arab lists were defeated in 1981 and none ran in 1984. This total disappearance is partly explained by the significant degree of Israelization that has come to mark Arab voting behavior.21 Like the Jews, the Arabs now vote for modern ideological parties rather than for traditional ethnic lists. The change also marks a real erosion in control—the hamulas and notables can no longer be depended on to deliver the Arab vote en bloc. Equally noteworthy is the fact that there has been a steady substantial rise in the Arab vote for non-Zionist lists. The Communist vote among the Arabs soared from 16.3 percent in 1951 to 23.1 percent in 1965, to 36.9 percent in 1973, and to 50.7 percent in 1977. It dropped to 37.9 percent in 1981 and to 33.2 percent in 1984 (see Table 12), but the DFPE and PLP together received 51.4 percent of the Arab vote in 1984 compared with the almost 49 percent won by all the Zionist lists (Labour, 23.0 percent; Weizmann's Yahad party, 6.1 percent; the liberal Shinui party, 5.1 percent; Citizens' Rights movement, 1 percent; Likud, 4.8 percent; National Religious Party, 4.8 percent; Tami, 1.4 percent; others, 2.4 percent—significantly, Labour captured four times as many Arab votes as did the Likud, whereas the Likud won slightly more Jewish votes). Overall the figures reflect the development of Rakah as a strong force in the Arab sector. They also show that in the mid-1980s the Arab vote is split evenly between Zionist and non-Zionist lists. In the absence before 1988 of integrationist and rejectionist Arab parties, voting is necessarily less differentiated than is orientation. Voting Communist or Zionist does not necessarily imply acceptance of those parties' ideological points of view; in fact, the overwhelming majority of Arab voters reject both. Voting for the Zionist lists is, rather, an expression of moderation, of a willingness to come to terms with the system; on the other hand, a vote for the DFPE and PLP is a show of militancy, of a challenge to the system from the outside. Both kinds of voting behavior are, thus, equally ideological; they reflect the Arab voters' overall attitude to ArabJewish relations. A detailed examination of election returns reveals significant and long-lasting differences in the voting preferences of different communities. The non-Zionist vote is disproportionately higher among non-Bedouin Moslems, average among Christians and considerably lower among the Bedouin and the Druse. So, for example, although the Arab vote for the DFPE and PLP in 1984 averaged 51 percent, it was 61 percent among the non-Bedouin Moslems of the district known as the Triangle: 17 percent among Bedouin and 6 percent among the Druse.22 These divergent

Table 12. Israeli-Arab Voting Behavior in National Elections, 1949-84 1949

1951

1955

1959

1961

1965

1969

1973

1977

1981

1984

Jewish lists

26.1

28.9

26.6

30.2

32.0

33.1

29.7

27.1

27.9

48.9

48.6

Affiliated Arab lists

51.7

54.8

57.8

58.5

45.5

40.8

41.0

36.0

21.5

13.2

—

Communist lists

22.2

16.3

15.6

11.3

22.5

23.1

29.5

36.9

50.7

37.9

33.2

Progressive List for Peace

18.2

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voting patterns reflect both differences in official policy toward the various communities and also their own political orientations. Finally, the non-Zionist lists have proven less effective in the elections to the Histadrut and to local councils than in those to the Knesset, but the gap has been closing over time. The Communists (or DFPE) won 20 percent of the Arab vote to the Histadrut convention in 1965, 31 percent in 1969, 27 percent in 1973, 30 percent in 1977, 32 percent in 1981 and 34 percent in 1985. The non-Zionist vote (DFPE and PLP taken together) in the Histadrut elections of 1985 totaled 43 percent as compared to 51 percent in the Knesset election the year before. The Zionist parties have a special advantage in the Histadrut because among its Arab electorate, in contrast to Arab voters to the Knesset, there is an over-representation of the economically dependent (wage earners who are employed by Jews and fewer selfemployed and employers) and of the less urbanized (inhabitants of smaller villages, including the Druse). Although Rakah wins less votes still in local elections, the increase in its Arab support has, nevertheless, been dramatic. Arab local politics are usually dominated by hamula, local or Zionist-affiliated lists. The Communist penetration has, therefore, been slow and difficult. In 1969 Communist lists participated in sixteen of thirty-three Arab local elections and won 8 percent of the vote. In 1973 they took part in sixteen of thirty-seven Arab local elections, and their share dropped to 7 percent. The turning point occurred after the 1973 War, when the Communists joined forces with other groups (the young, university graduates, but also, sometimes, hamulas) to form the DFPE, which won a remarkable victory in Nazareth in 1975. In the 1978 local elections, the DFPE ran in thirty-two of fifty-one Arab councils in which elections were held, and it received 26 percent of the vote; in 1983, contesting thirty-two of the forty-six councils, it gained 24 percent of the vote. Of even greater significance was the triumph of DFPE candidates in seventeen of the fifty-one direct-balloting elections for heads of local councils, which took place for the first time in Israel in 1978; fourteen heads of local councils elected in 1983 represent the DFPE. The large increase in Arab voting for non-Zionist lists clearly reflects a growing politicization,23 which is particularly evident in the declining support for the Zionist establishment. The proportion of Arabs voting for non-Zionist lists (DFPE and PLP) during the 1969-85 period rose from 8 to 24 percent in local elections, from 20 to 43 percent in Histadrut general elections and from 29.5 to 51 percent in Knesset elections. These and other figures are also indicative of the Arabs' firm attachment to Israel. The high Arab voting turnout (74 percent in the 1984 Knesset elections) demonstrates their firm desire to integrate into Israeli society and politics; a moderate decline in turnout suggests growing impatience with their limited voting choice, especially the absence of an integrationist Arab party prior to 1988. Israelization is further reflected in the phasing out of the non-ideological, traditional election lists and in the heightened ideological nature of the conflict between non-Zionist and Zionist parties. In a way, the political experience of Israeli Arabs is similar to that of the Oriental Jews in that both have gradually liberated themselves from Labour


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party hegemony; having become freer Israeli citizens, they have shifted their voting to the opposition (for the non-Zionist Arabs, this has come to mean Rakah and the PLP; for the Zionist Orientals, the Likud camp). The shifting Arab vote implies intensified militancy rather than radicalization. This is abundantly clear even in voting for Zionist lists. Jewish parties can no longer take the Arab vote for granted; on the contrary, they must present a good record in minority affairs, face up to rising Arab expectations and demands, increase Arab political representation and compete with their non-Zionist rivals. The greater Arab vote for the DFPE (Rakah) and the PLP should not be interpreted as a drift away from Israel and the Jews. To substantiate this view an account of the character and activities of these two small parties, especially Rakah, is required. Although its constituency is essentially Arab, Rakah is an Arab-Jewish party in both ideology and leadership.24 Its mixed composition fits the Communist ideology of coexistence in which the constituent national groups should be represented. The Jewish presence in the party is also calculated to ensure a certain measure of immunity against harassment by the authorities. Rakah is an orthodox Marxist-class party, for which nationalism is secondary; as a follower of Moscow, it has remained impervious to the spirit of Eurocommunism. But like other Communist parties in the Western, "bourgeois" democracies, it abides by the rules of parliamentary procedures, resorting at times and selectively to lawful mass action. The Communist party enjoys legal status as the result of its recognition (following the lead of the USSR) of the UN resolution on the partition of Palestine in 1947 and because until 1967 it called for that resolution's implementation. However, after the 1967 war, Rakah extended its recognition of Israel to the borders of June 4, 1967, including those territories originally set aside in the 1947 resolution for the proposed Arab state but occupied and annexed by Israel during the War of Independence. It has consistently endorsed the right of the Palestinians to self-determination (during the 1950s it even demanded the extension of this right to the Arabs in Israel).25 Today it advocates the formation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, viewing the PLO as the representative body of the Palestinians but dissociating itself from its terrorist tactics. Its recognition of Israel's right to exist within the pre-1967 borders and its commitment to parliamentary politics render Rakah an opposition party, not a resistance movement. It employs normal democratic methods in its attempt to reverse Israel's "imperialist" foreign policy and to transform the state into a deZionized, communist society. The increased support for Rakah among Israeli Arabs reflects their difficult and partial incorporation into Israeli society and their massive shift from a moderate passivity to a militant activism. As Rakah itself articulates an essentially oppositionist ideology, it has both exploited and promoted this trend. Until the appearance of the PLP in 1984, the Communist party served as the major political outlet for protest against the Zionist establishment and its policies. It is wrong, however, to regard Arab support for Rakah as unrelated to its ideology. Disregarding its Communist stance, Arabs closely and critically follow the policies

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of the party toward Arab issues both within and outside Israel. A case in point was the sharp drop in the Arab vote for the Communist party in the 1959 national elections as a result of its opposition to Egypt's popular president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had taken anti-Communist actions. By voting Communist, many militant Arabs do not intend simply to register a protest against the Zionist establishment, but rather seek to express their agreement with Rakah's analysis of the unequal status of the Arab minority in Israel, with its proposed solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict, with its recognition of their Palestinian identity and ties, with its view of their future linked to Israel and with its consistent struggle for equality and peace.26 Thus, the main function of Rakah is to integrate Arabs into Israeli society as oppositionists, providing them with ideology and leadership. This acts as a barrier to large-scale radicalization and accommodation alike. Rakah's non-accommodationist and non-rejectionist position finds expression in many areas, but it suffices to mention only a few. Many Arabs enter Israeli politics through Rakah. Because it is the only party in the fullest sense (with party organization, ideology, membership, press and ongoing activities) operating in the Arab sector, it introduces Arabs to a modern political culture and incorporates them into the political system. Yet Rakah, ostracized and stigmatized as anti-Israel by the Jewish public, blocks real political integration for Arabs and institutionalizes their political isolation and impotence. Its efforts to break this quarantine by forming the DFPE jointly with non-Communist Jewish and Arab circles have so far failed. Rakah's position on the critical issue of Israel's legitimacy has important implications for the standing of Arabs in Israel. It encourages them to accept Israel's right to exist, on the one hand, but not to recognize Israel as a Jewish-Zionist state, on the other hand. Hence, it reinforces the Jewish image of Arabs as anti-Israel. Furthermore, it takes a staunch stand against Zionism, branding all its streams as imperialist and racist, usually without much distinction. It thus hampers Arab reconciliation with certain Zionist features of the state. The Palestinian question is another example. Rakah is a strong protagonist of the Palestinian cause. It urges Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the establishment there of a Palestinian state under PLO rule. This plan is labeled extremist by Jews; consequently, its dissemination by Rakah deepens the alienation between Arabs and Jews. On the other hand, because this plan is to apply only to the non-Israeli Palestinians, it effectively contributes to the Israelization of the Arabs. Rakah stresses the Palestinian past of the Arabs in Israel but not a Palestinian present or future. According to its platform and pronouncements, the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians have the right to self-determination, but the Arabs in Israel do not; i:he PLO represents the Palestinians, not Israeli Arabs (Rakah does). Rakah maintains that Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of Israel and should seek solutions for their problems within this state. In fact, although proclaiming the reverse, Rakah is instrumental in the dissociation of Israeli Arabs from the Palestinians. It aims to turn Israeli Arabs into a well-integrated Palestinian minority in Israeli society, acting as a strong pressure group in Israeli politics. This oppositionist rather than rejectionist position on Arab-Jewish coexistence is


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shared equally by the PLP. The PLP differs markedly from Rakah in being nonCommunist, not oriented toward Moscow, democratic, less hostile to religion and more fully devoted to Palestinian nationalism. It, too, is a mixed Arab—Jewish party that is engaged in the hard task of reconciling the double commitment of a majority of Arabs to both Israel and to the Palestinian people. A systematic comparison of DFPE voters with PLP voters in the 1985 survey detected no difference in their views. In conclusion, voting for non-Zionist parties (DFPE and PLP) does not mean rejection of Israel; rather, it represents, first, a protest against the policies and practices of the Zionist establishment; second, a demand for full equality, for participation and for recognition of the Arabs' Palestinian identity; and third, a desire to achieve a comprehensive peace settlement by establishing a PLO-led Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip next to Israel. Protest Accommodation rather than protest characterized the Arab response in the period prior to 1967. The Arabs did not resist the sudden transformation of their status into an alien minority in a Jewish-Zionist state, the massive land expropriations, the military government and the other forms of differential treatment. They became resigned, instead, to their fate and waited passively for a better future. The limited struggle for Israeli-Arab rights was led by liberal Jews who enjoyed the democratic freedoms that, in part, were temporarily denied the Arabs. Arab protest was not, however, entirely absent. It was expressed in the refusal to accept the meager compensation offered for confiscated lands, the frequent breaches of the military restrictions, the abortive formation of a national movement (al-Ard) and the emergence of literary works (poetry and short stories) critical of the state. After 1967 the Arab response shifted from accommodation to protest. Such protest has become so common that it is now very difficult to imagine Arab politics without it. Its contemporary importance is clearly evident in the new forms and patterns that have come to prevail. First, protest has become a standard strategy for change. Arabs are no longer passive and compliant, but they are willing to act and to struggle. Moreover, they accept the need for protest to effect change. This is true of Arabs of all orientations, including the accommodationists, who protest within the Zionist establishment. Furthermore, protest has become Arabized. Before 1967 protest on behalf of Arabs was undertaken mostly by Jews, since then Arabs have become the dominant force. Jews are still, of course, involved in protest related to Arab issues, but Arabs predominate. Third, protest has become pervasive. It is concerned with education, lands, housing, budget allocations, agriculture, employment, the occupied territories and foreign affairs. Most important, civil rights protest has acquired a national dimension. For example, the struggle against land expropriation is seen as involving not only the defense of personal property but also the national right of the Arab minority

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to keep its collective property. Turned into a national issue, land losses have become a great concern to all Arabs, including those who do not own land or those whose land has not been confiscated. Again, protest has become organized. During the 1970s, many Arab organizations were formed to promote Arab interests through direct action or protest. They included, for instance, the Committee of Heads of Arab Local Councils, the Sons of the Village movement, the Progressive National movement, the Islamic Revitalization movement, the Committee for Bedouin Rights and Lands in the Negev as well as the Committee for Defense of Arab Lands. Protest is increasingly coordinated to involve representatives from all the political streams and to extend beyond local and sectional concerns to regional and statewide issues. Finally, protest has become diverse in the means and the forms that it adopts. In addition to the use of the standard parliamentary measures of verbal protest and voting, Arabs have turned since the 1970s to extra-parliamentary and even extralegal methods. Mass demonstrations and general or partial strikes have become common. Three landmark general strikes deserve mention: the first, on March 30, 1976 (Land Day) was directed against land expropriations in the Galilee; the second, on September 22, 1982, arose in spontaneous response to the Sabra and Shatilla massacre; and the third, on June 24, 1987 (Equality Day), was called to protest inequality, discrimination and insufficient development funds (especially for education and local services). The use of violence, though still comparatively rare, has also gained in significance and is occasionally resorted to by both Arab protestors and the police. Between 1967 and 1971, four hundred Arabs were convicted of sabotage or collaboration with the enemy. Although this wave of terrorism subsided, convictions of Israeli Arabs for membership in terrorist organizations or for involvement in acts of terror continue to be reported from time to time in the press.27 Great notoriety has attached to several cases in which Jews (a male soldier in the Triangle, a female soldier, and a 15-year-old boy from Haifa) were murdered by Israeli Arabs, apparently motivated by nationalistic sentiments; these incidents have enraged many Jews.28 Although never pressed in courts, charges are repeatedly made by anonymous sources in the Jewish National Fund and the police accusing nationalist Israeli Arabs of starting fires in the national forests.29 Other extra-legal actions of political protest for some Israeli Arabs include painting walls with slogans, raising the Palestinian flag in public places, shouting calls for liberation during demonstrations (the most common phrase is "We will liberate the Galilee with our spirit and blood") and singing nationalist songs at weddings. The shift from passive accommodation to active protest is an essential component of rising Arab politicization. Yet, despite its dramatic growth, Arab protest has remained predominantly non-violent and within the bounds of democratic processes, and it amounts to less than one might have predicted given the pervasive inequality, institutionalized discrimination and the depth of the issues dividing Arabs and Jews. Paradoxically, most Arabs express their "Israeliness," not rejection or extremism, in acts of protest. Their realization that they arc here to stay as a permanent minority in the Jewish state prompts them to fight for equality and improved


85

conditions by using Israeli democracy to achieve this goal. This struggle is part of the broader process of the democratization of the state—the expansion of individual rights and the rise of disadvantaged groups. To a significant degree, Arab protest derives from the fact that the Arabs are second-class Israelis, that they are not part of Israeli democracy in the fullest sense. Because they neither constitute a strong pressure group within the Zionist establishment and are not organized as an integrationist political party (i.e., a potential coalition partner)—although the Democratic Arab party that was founded by MK Darawsha in 1988 is a significant step in this direction—they lack the negotiating power that is the essence of Israeli politics. As a result, Arabs are forced to turn to, and to over-employ, extra-parliamentary mass politics. The Equality Day strike is a case in point. For months the organizers' efforts to obtain more funds for Arab local councils failed; they waited in vain until the last moment for a real move on the part of the government. The strike, therefore, was the only resort left; disadvantaged Jewish groups, on the other hand, are also able to work within the established Jewish parties. CONCLUSION Since the proclamation of the state, there has been a steady de-marginalization in the status of Israeli Arabs. In the 1950s they were a segment forcibly severed from the vanquished Palestinian people; a mass of villagers, virtually without formal education, an intelligensia or a leadership; a population placed under military government; a group struggling for economic and national survival; and a new and suspect minority. By the 1980s this peripheral Arab situation had been dramatically transformed. Today Israeli Arabs have a middle class, a network of organizations and institutions and a strong leadership; they constitute a militant minority that avails itself of the democratic process to fight for equality; and they have developed ramified ties with the Palestinians beyond the Green Line, while recognizing that their fate and future are linked to Israel. This shift in the Arab position has brought into the open previously latent tensions and conflicts with the Jewish majority. The Arabs have begun to press issues such as land expropriations and the equitable dispensation of development funds that they did not raise in the past. More generally, the Arabs have pushed for considerably more change than the Jews are prepared to accept, or even consider. The continuing international conflict between Israel and the Arab world as well as the Palestinian resistance in the occupied territories cast into bold relief the fundamental issues in Arab-Jewish relations in Israel. Beyond the undisputed fact of civic equality, the basic disagreement hinges on the status of the Arabs as a minority. In fact, most Arabs reconcile themselves to the existence of the State of Israel and realize that they are destined to remain a permanent minority in the Jewish state. This is precisely the reason why they are more vehement in opposing differential treatment and the restrictions of control. They wish to be treated like Israeli Jews and to be fully admitted into Israeli society. They also demand a state recognition of their elected leaders, full control of their own institutions and Jewish acceptance of their Palestinian identity and ties. These claims are presented along with a firm call

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to Israel to end its occupation of the territories and to acknowledge the Palestinians' right to self-determination. Such views signify the politicization, not the radicalization, of the Israeli Arabs. Rather than rejecting Israel, they challenge the intolerable status quo and demand to negotiate new terms of coexistence. From a Jewish perspective, however, this new militancy constitutes radicalization on the part of the Arabs. The Jews fear that fulfilling the Arab demands would necessitate the transformation of Israel into a binational state and that belligerent Palestinian nationalism would place its survival in jeopardy. Jews do not appreciate the growing acceptance of Israel as a state by Israeli Arabs and expect them to accept it as a Jewish-Zionist state as well. For their part, the Israeli Arabs do not appreciate the difficulties the Jews have in accommodating them: Jews' discontent with the steady decline in the Jewish share of the population, Jewish anxieties about creeping binationalism, historical insecurities reinforced by memories of the Holocaust, repugnance for continued Palestinian rejectionism and the backlash produced by indiscriminate Arab terrorism. Although this set of beliefs, actions and developments among the Jews militates, in the main, against amicable Arab-Jewish relations, it does not amount to outright rejection of the Arabs. For Jews, their own resistance to further, more radical change is not the result of an intransigence grounded in self-serving continued domination and exclusion, rather, it stems from basic insecurity of being a minority both historically and currently in the region and from apprehensions over losing control and so undermining the Jewish state. The more headway Israeli Arabs make in their fight for equal rights and opportunity, the more intense will be their disagreements with Jews on the central issues of coexistence. Only then will Arabs and Jews face the most difficult aspect of the problem: How far can Arabs identify with the Jewish state?

Notes This article is part of a monograph on Arab-Jewish relations in Israel that will be published by Westview Press in 1989. It is based on a study supported by a grant for the years 1985-87 from the Ford Foundation received through Israel Foundations Trustees. 1. For a brief but comprehensive introduction to the Arab minority, see Mark Tessler, "Arabs in Israel," AUFS Reports (American Universities Field Staff Reports), no. 1 (Asia), 1-25. 2. See, for example, Ori Tehon, "Hakzanah bekerev 'arviyei yisrael," Migvan 37 (June 1979), 28-29. 3. Eli Rekhess, " 'Arviyei yisrael leahar 1967: hahrafah shel be'ayat haorientaziah," Sekirot, publ. no. 45 (Shiloah Center, Tel-Aviv University, 1976), 9-56; idem, " 'Arviyei yisrael vehafka'at hakarka'ot bagalil: rek'a, eiru'im, vehashlakhot, 1975-1977," Sekirot, publ. no. 53 (Shiloah Center, Tel-Aviv University, 1977), 1-69. 4. Idem, "The Israeli Arab intelligentsia," The Jerusalem Quarterly 11 (1979), 5169. 5. Idem, "Hakfar ha'aravi beyisrael: moked politi mithadesh," Ofakim bageografiah 17-18 (1986), 145-160. 6. Idem, "Bein komunizm leleumiyut 'aravit: rakah vehami'ut ha'aravi beyisrael (1965-1973)" (Ph.D. diss., Tel-Aviv University, 1986).


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7. Yohanan Peres, "Modernization and Nationalism in the Identity of the Israeli Arab," Middle East Journal 24, no. 4 (Autumn 1970), 479-492; idem, "'Al hahevel hamatuah: kavim lezehuto shel ha'aravi hayisraeli," in Yahasei 'edot beyisrael (Tel-Aviv: 1976), 176-185. 8. Jacob M. Landau, "The Arab Vote," in Dan Caspi, Abraham Diskin and Emanuel Gutmann (eds.), The Roots of Begin's Success (London: 1984), 169-189. 9. Mahmoud Mi'ari, "Traditionalism and Political Identity of Arabs in Israel," Journal of Asian and African Studies 22, nos. 1-2 (1987), 42. 10. Elia Zureik, The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism (London: 1979), 186-187. 11. Khalil Nakhleh, "Palestinian Struggle Under Occupation," Arab World Issues, Occasional Papers No. 6 (Belmont: 1980), 1-16. 12. Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State—Israel's Control of a National Minority (Austin: 1980), 237-238. 13. Ibid., 266. 14. Meron Benvenisti, The West Bank Data Base Project: 1987 Report (Jerusalem: 1987), 71. 15. These two theses were introduced for the first time by Sammy Smooha, The Orientation and Politicization of the Arab Minority in Israel (Haifa: 1980). 16. Sammy Smooha, "Control of Minorities in Israel and Northern Ireland," Comparative Studies in Society and History 22, no. 2 (April 1980), 256-280. 17. All the surveys drew on national samples taken from complete official voter rolls in a cross section of Arab and mixed localities. Interviews were conducted in Arabic by Arab interviewers using standard questionnaires; full confidentiality was ensured. For a full report on the 1976 survey, see The Orientation and Politicization of the Arab Minority in Israel (Haifa: 1984); on the 1980 survey, Sammy Smooha, Arabs and Jews in Israel. Vol. 1: Conflicting and Shared Attitudes in a Divided Society (Boulder and London: 1989); on the 1985 survey, Sammy Smooha, Arabs and Jews in Israel. Vol. 2: Change and Continuity in Mutual Intolerance (Boulder and London: in press). 18. Thomas L. Friedman, "An Islamic Revival Is Quickly Gaining Ground in an Unlikely Place: Israel," New York Times, 30 April 1987. 19. Attallah Mansur, "Keizad tiraeh hashvitah habaah?" Ha'aretz 21 and 28 June 1987. 20. For a data base and main publications on Arab voting, see Raanan Cohen, "Tahalikhei hitargenut politit udfusei hazba'ah shel 'arviyei yisrael (bearb'a ma'arakhot behirot laknesset, 1973-1984)" (M.A. thesis, Tel-Aviv University, 1985). This is the principal source for figures cited in this part of our discussion. 21. Majid al-Haj and Avner Yaniv, "Uniformity or Diversity: A Reappraisal of the Voting Behavior of the Arab Minority in Israel," in Asher Arian (ed.), The Elections in Israel 1981 (Tel-Aviv: 1983), 139-169; Moshe Shokeid, "The Arab Vote and the Israeli Arab Party System," in Moshe Shokeid and Shlomo Deshen, Distant Relations: Ethnicity and Politics Among Arabs and North African Jews in Israel (New York: 1982), 121-138. 22. Because 90 percent of Christian Arabs live in mixed all-Arab localities or in mixed Arab-Jewish towns, it is hard to calculate the exact Christian-Arab vote. 23. For a similar account, see Nadim Rouhana, "Collective Identity and Arab Voting Patterns," in Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (eds.), The Elections in Israel 1984 (Tel-Aviv: 1986), 121-149. 24. See n. 6. 25. The Thirteenth Congress of the Israeli Communist Party confirmed the report of the party's secretary general, who said: "The just solution for the problem of Eretz Israel and for the question of Israeli-Arab peace requires that Israel recognize the right to self-determination, including secession, of the Arab people in Eretz Israel, including that part living in Israel," Israeli Communist Party, Have'idah ha-13 (Tel-Aviv: 1959), 29. 26. Joseph Ginat offers a different interpretation for the Rakah and PLP Arab vote. He sees it as a protest vote solely because Israeli Arabs feel only solidarity with the Palestinians,

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but they lack Palestinian identity and ties. According to Ginat, Arabs are not now and are not becoming Palestinians because Palestinization means rejection of Israel. See Ginat, "The Arab Vote: Protest or Palestinization?" in Arian and Shamir, The Elections in Israel 1984, 151-167. 27. For a wave of arrests, see, for example, Yoel Dar, "Hakark'a hamazmihah 'avaryanei bitahon," Davar, 30 May 1979. 28. See, e.g., Yerah Tal, "Mishpat rozhei Dani Katz, hasof," Ha'aretz, 16 October 1985. 29. Ha'aretz, 1 July 1987.

Exile in the Holy Land: The Dilemma of Haredi Jewry Aviezer Ravitzky (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

The social group commonly known as haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewry is composed of many diverse factions, each of which differs significantly from the others: hasidim, for example, as against mitnagdim; Lubavitch hasidim as against those of Satmar; Agudat Israel as against the 'edah haredit in Jerusalem—each loyal to its own path and own rabbi. The differences among the various sections of haredi Jewry occur at a number of different levels.1 They differ in their attitudes to modernity, the Jewish people as a whole, Zionism, the State of Israel and the theological significance of contemporary history. That is to say, the major dividing lines fall between moderate rejection of modernity and a view of modernity as the devil incarnate, a sense of responsibility for the Jewish people in its entirety and a preference to seclude and isolate the truly faithful, non-Zionism and anti-Zionism, a theology that sees direct divine intervention reflected in the unfolding historical process and a worldview of halakhists for whom current historical events are almost devoid of religious significance. As a generic term, therefore, "haredi Jewry" may be artificial and valid only from the perspective of the outside observer who sees surface manifestations but not the underlying conflicts of philosophy and outlook.2 This problem certainly presents itself when we consider the variety of haredi attitudes toward the existence, laws, mores and activities of the sovereign Jewish state in the current (i.e., premessianic) era. That issue stands at the center of a sharp conflict within the haredi community, occasionally resulting in mutual rejection and boycott. In the light of this fragmentation, we must begin with the question: What common characteristics do these groups, in fact, share? THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF EXILE From one crucial angle, it appears that all haredi groups share a common base. This becomes clear via the following formulation: Who is a haredi? Whoever views and experiences life in the Jewish state in Eretz Israel as exile—the exile of Israel in the Holy Land. One pole of the haredi camp, the radical anti-Zionist one (particularly 89

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Neturei Karta circles), states that it is exile because of the existence of the State of Israel, owing to both its betrayal of the Messiah and secular nationality; the opposite pole, the non-Zionist one, maintains that it is exile despite the existence of the State of Israel, despite the physical rescue and "the beginning of the ingathering of the exiles" that has accompanied its birth and existence.3 In any event—exile. Those who share this perception, in all its various shadings, deny the possibility of an interim historical situation, neither exile nor redemption. They unequivocally reject the validity of such a hybrid and recognize no halakhic (legal) or theoretical model appropriate to it. Any reality that is not totally messianic is, by its very definition, total exile. For exile is not a geographic condition that can be overcome by aliyah and settlement alone. Neither is exile a political condition that can be corrected by the attainment of national sovereignty and independence. The concept "exile" is a theological, metaphysical one—the exile of the shekhinah ("divine Presence")—that will expire only with the final setting right of man and the world. The responsibility that exile imposes on the Jewish people focuses exclusively on religious-spiritual activity, not on mundane political activity. The concept "exile" represents, first and foremost, a reality that has not yet been redeemed from sin: "Because of our sins we were exiled from our land" and "Israel will be redeemed only by repentance." For example, the Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneersohn, recently stated: The period in which we are living now is not the beginning of the redemption, and the aliyah of many Jews to the Holy Land is not the ingathering of the exiles, but rather the possibility of rescuing many Jews during the time of the exile. . . . The false redemption does not allow the true redemption to be revealed, for those who think that they are already living in the redemption do not perform the [religious] actions required for the going forth from exile and the revealing of the true redemption; they cause the prolongation of the exile, the exile of the individual, the exile of the community, the exile of all Israel, and the exile of the shekhinah [emphases in the original].4 Similarly, his outstanding critic, Rabbi Eliezer Menahem Shach, the leader of the Lithuanian rashei yeshivot in Israel declared, "The Jewish people is still in exile, until the arrival of the redeemer, even when it is in Eretz Israel; this is neither redemption nor the beginning of the redemption."5 The common factor shared by these two opponents is that all historical reality by the veiy fact of its gradual course—progressing "bit by bit, and by natural means"—is the reality of exile; any existence that is not messianic, perfect and miraculous and from which the flavor of sin has not been removed is the existence of exile. This holds true for the partial return to Zion and the Jewish political resurrection in our time as well. (The denial of a current process of redemption distinguishes the haredim from messianic religious Zionists; the claim of exile separates them from any religious Zionist position.)6 This perception of the present historical reality as exile is not limited solely to a theological awareness. It is also reflected in a psychological and existential stance toward the secular environment, in a sense of personal and communal alienation. The concept "exile" does not denote the mere opposite of the destined messianic

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redemption, it also denotes the lack of a home, the home of one's father and grandfather as well as the sense of estrangement from the external society, its lifestyles and culture, and from the secular government and its institutions. These are depicted in many instances as a society and government that have completely lost all Jewish identifying characteristics, with nothing to distinguish them from the gentile environment in any country—or in other words, "exile." This consciousness is reinforced by the intermittently renewed sharp public conflicts with the secular society and its leaders. For example, in a public assembly held in 1986 to protest the arson that resulted in the burning of religious books in a Tel-Aviv yeshivah, Rabbi Pinhas Menahem Alter, the head of the Sefat Emet yeshivah of Gur hasidim and a member of the Mo'ezet gedolei hatorah ("Council of Torah Sages") lamented, "This is the most difficult exile, exile under Jewish rule." This is "the most difficult exile," specifically because that which was supposed to be a home seems to be strange and hostile and arouses in the mind of the speaker associations of persecutions of the Jews by non-Jewish nations. Or, as Rabbi Binyamin Mendelson, the late rabbi of Moshav Komemiyut stated, "Our sins have led to our being put in exile in the Holy Land, in the hands of the nonreligious."7 These are not metaphysical statements on the question of messianic redemption, but rather expressions of an existential state of alienation, both personal and collective, reflected in the identification of secular Jewish authority with the gentile ruler. Here a distinction should be made: exile, in its first, theological, meaning—the absence of redemption—is not necessarily meant to express an attitude of delegitimation and principled negation of the contemporary collective Jewish enterprise in Eretz Israel. Rather, it is meant to convey the idea that the Jewish state exists within history, not beyond it: not in the End of Days. Only a messianic reality could redeem and break through the category of exile. On the other hand, exile, in its second sense—the absence of a home—reflects a position of distance from, and rejection of, the secular reconstruction of the Holy Land, of a Jewish nationalism that is not anchored in the Torah and its commandments. This life together with, and under the leadership of, transgressors is the life of the exiled, of the resident alien, of the cast aside, even beyond the fact of the Messiah's tarrying. Those speaking for haredi Jewry recurrently use, in various contexts, expressions and depictions that reveal this consciousness of a double exile in the Holy Land.8 There is nothing new about this phenomenon. As early as 1937, in his speech to the convention (Haknessiyah hagedolah) of Agudat Israel in Marienbad, Rabbi Elhanan Bunem Wasserman envisioned the future Jewish state as the exile of Israel—exile in both senses. He stated that the observant Jew is deeply hurt when he hears talk of the "beginning of the redemption"; on the contrary, a Jewish state, should it arise and come into being according to the secular Zionist vision, would be nothing other than "the beginning of a new exile"—an unprecedented "exile amidst the Jews," the "exile of the Yevsektsia."9 The horrors of the Holocaust, in which Rabbi Wasserman himself perished, somewhat blunted the style of the confrontation but not its content or its message. In 1945, for example, after the destruction of European Jewry, Rabbi Moshe Blau, one of the outstanding leaders of Agudat Israel in Eretz Israel, issued a call to haredi

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Jewry to mobilize for the rebuilding of the Diaspora from its ruins. The haredim, he declared, must not be deceived by the Zionist call for the "liquidation of the exile";10 the reconstruction of Eretz Israel and the reconstruction of the communities abroad were of equal importance. In Eretz Israel the faithful Jew actually found himself living in a triple exile: at the hands of the British, of the Arabs and, especially, of Jews who had thrown off the yoke of the Torah. In Rabbi Blau's words: At present we have three exiles in Eretz Israel, the exile of Edom, the exile of Ishmael, and the exile of the freethinkers, and Eretz Israel perhaps surpasses the foreign lands in this last exile, for at any rate it does not exist, in this form, in any other place outside Eretz Israel. The word of the Lord, "And you I will scatter among the nations" [Lev. 26:33] is ultimately valid, just as the promise, "He will bring you together again from all the peoples" [Deut. 30:3] is ultimately valid. As long as "He will bring you" has not been fulfilled—and anyone in whose heart a spark of true Judaism burns will not say that the government by the freethinkers in Eretz Israel conforms to "He will bring you"—then the validity of "And you I will scatter" obviously still exists. . . .Haredi Jewry in Eretz Israel is unbearably oppressed, the heavy hand of the freethinkers has overpowered it since it has lost the support of the healthy, vibrant Jewry in the exile of Europe.

It is ironic that the spokesman of haredi Jewry apparently did not invent the image of the future Jewish state as the exile of Israel in Eretz Israel. Credit for this should be given to those non-religious writers who at the end of the nineteenth century expressed their profound fear of the expected takeover by the rabbis of the free life of the people. Yehudah Leib Gordon, for example, launched an attack on the settlement activity in Eretz Israel that was not part of, or accompanied by, a spiritual liberation from the ghetto, that is, by a cultural and ideological revolution. Gordon explained his opposition by his fear of the heavy hand of the Shulhan 'arukh and its bearers over the Jews. This, he believed, would prevent the true redemption of the people and was liable to turn life in Eretz Israel into a new exile. In his words, "I have felt this on my own body; the exile under Israel is more difficult for us than the exile under the nations of the world."11 ZIONISM AS AN IDEA AND THE ZIONIST STATE As the following discussion will show, there are three elements in haredi opposition to Zionism. The haredi polemic against the fledgling Zionist movement began with an opposition to the secular nature of the modern Jewish national revival, speedily moving on to challenge as well the very legitimacy of the collective historical effort for mass aliyah from the exile—depicted as trespassing on the bounds of the promised messianic redemption. In addition, it was argued on pragmatic grounds that the Zionist idea was simply an illusion, lacking any basis in actual historical reality.12 Zionism was attacked in the first place for wanting to cast off the yoke of the commandments and to exchange it for the national idea, that is, to effect an essential transformation in the Jewish people from the people of the Lord to a nation like all other nations. The Zionists, in this view, arrogantly usurped Judaism and the holy


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tongue in their birthplace, the Holy Land, and placed transgressors at the head of the Jewish people. Accordingly, one must refrain from any cooperation with the Zionists, even for the purpose of rebuilding the land, and one should completely separate oneself both from their leaders and their following. A religious obligation may not be performed while committing a transgression, and the Holy Land may not be rebuilt in a secular manner. This was stated quite specifically in 1900 by Rabbi Hayim Halevi Soloveichik of Brisk, a leading Torah scholar: Regarding the Zionist sect, [they] have now organized strongly . . . they have already announced that their goal is to uproot the fundamentals of [our] religion—and to this end also to take control of all the Jewish communities. . . . The people of Israel should take care not to join a venture that threatens to destroy religion and is a stumbling block to the House of Israel.13

Another leading Torah scholar, the rebbe of Gur, known as the Sefat Emet, put it succinctly, "An upright Jew should not join together with the wicked, that is, the Zionists."14 A second, theological, argument accused the Zionist movement of hastening the End, of seeking to burst into history by means of mundane activity and of seeking to replace the anticipation of the heavenly miraculous redemption by the deeds and plans of man. In the words of the then-reigning Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Dov Baer Schneersohn: We must not heed them regarding this matter, to achieve our redemption by our own power, nor are we permitted to hasten the End or to entreat greatly for this, and certainly not to employ material powers and politics, i.e., to go forth from the exile by physical might.15

Similarly: [Such] a form of going forth from the exile by force and of redeeming themselves by their own power cannot be accepted by whoever holds fast to the Torah and the commandments; one cannot take action in this manner, because this is in opposition to the faith and hope of Israel, who hope for and await the salvation in the coming of our righteous Messiah.16

This argument is not directed against the secular national nature of the Zionist idea nor against the sinful way of life of the Zionists and their leaders, but rather against the core theological meaning of their enterprise, which threatens to uproot the messianic belief from the hearts of Israel. There can be no mass movement to Zion except the miraculous Biblical return, which will exceed the bounds of man and nature. A historical return, bit by bit, is to be considered not as a part of the ultimate process, but rather as its negation. Quite apart from such considerations, a third, practical, argument portrayed the Zionist idea as a fata morgana, lacking any chance of success. "All their words are delusion—false visions and vanities—for every person in whom human wisdom beats will understand and comprehend that their words resemble upper stories built on spiderwebs."17 The Zionists rely on an illusion regarding the good-will of the gentile nations—who supposedly will allow the Jews to repossess their land—just as they ignore the nature of the Jewish people, which is not suited to mundane political activity.18 The outcome of the Zionists' actions will most likely only

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arouse the anger of the non-Jews against those Jews who wish to dwell in tranquility in their lands of residence: in short, Zionism is removed from all considered judgment and from any examination of the actual historical data. In the words of Dov Berish Tursch, author of the first haredi anti-Zionist polemical book in Russia (in 1899): What is the difference between those who believe that the Messiah will come, humbly, and riding on an ass, or on a light cloud, and the Zionists in our time, who believe that the kingdoms will assemble and will give them the land of Palestine, with the agreement of the Sultan? Is there anything in this belief, even the smallest particle, about which we can say, that it will come about in a natural way?19

To the contrary, it seemed that the messianic idea is the only realistic solution.20 The success and gradual fulfillment of Zionism, the Balfour Declaration, the strengthening of the Yishuv in Eretz Israel and finally the establishment of the State of Israel and the aliyah of several million Jews (and, on the other hand, the terrible destruction of European Jewry who desired to dwell in tranquility)—all left their mark in the ideological sphere and generated profound changes in the conduct of the debate. The practical argument concerning Zionism was gradually set aside by the force of historical reality. The standing of the theological argument, which regarded Zionism as unduly hastening the End, was greatly undermined, and it retained its original validity only among the separatist camp of the Guardians of the Walls (the Neturei Karta) and the Satmar hasidim (discussed later). Only the argument concerning the nature of secular nationalism and the abandonment of the Torah has retained its force. Indeed, recent events have provided a broad arena for a renewed and intensified confrontation over this issue. But a noticeable change has taken place in this sphere as well. A confrontation with an abstract idea, with a Jewish state that is merely a vision or dream of the future, is not the same as a real-life confrontation with an actual and concrete Jewish state. The aspiration for a radical separation from an ideological movement (Zionism) and from individual Jews (the secularists) was markedly different from the attempt to maintain one's distance from an entire society with its own political, judicial and economic institutions. Therefore, a sharp distinction has developed between the theoretical sphere of principles and the pragmatic sphere; between ideas and values, on the one hand, and political institutions and organizational tools, on the other hand; between a priori assumptions and ex post facto adaptations. To bring matters into focus: the prevalent position currently dominant among most of the haredi circles in the State of Israel (in a variety of versions) recognizes the secular Jewish state de facto, but has not granted it de jure recognition.21 Haredi representatives cooperate in a circumscribed and conditional manner with the institutions that are the outcome of the Zionist idea and the Zionist movement, but they deny the validity of the Zionist doctrine per se, namely, they reject the founding ideology of the national enterprise.22 The State of Israel as a political entity and act of political organization by Jews is deemed to be devoid of religious significance, whether positive or negative; even more so, it is to be totally unconnected to the question of redemption and the messianic belief. (This state equals exile.) In itself it is a neutral phenomenon, existing within the secular realm; it is neither


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within the sphere of transgression nor of obligation, but rather within the voluntary sphere. The position of the outstanding scholar and leader of the previous generation, Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz (known as the Hazon Ish), was recently and reliably summed up: The Hazon Ish did not view the state as the height of the darkness of the exile, and certainly not as redemption, but rather as something merely technical and administrative; it therefore has no significance in principle, neither as a success nor as a disaster, and it has no connection with the redemption.23

This consistent distinction drawn between the constituent idea of an Israeli state and the political institution itself, between values and technical and administrative tools and instruments is intended to avoid the need of taking any essential a priori— and certainly theological—position vis-a-vis the Jewish state in pre-messianic times. The distinction permits both a clearly pragmatic approach to the state and its enterprises as well as life alongside the State of Israel and cooperation with its institutions—openly based on accommodation in practice—on post factum acceptance of the given political reality. This life is supposed to be free of ideological commitment or identification, innocent of any normative decision and a priori recognition. In the words of Rabbi Avraham Weinfeld: We stand before the fact that they established a state on a part of our Holy Land, and hence we do not have before us a halakhic question of permitted or prohibited, for this question has already been resolved by those who do not ask [religious] questions; all that remains for us is to clarify our position and our attitude toward this reality with which they have presented us. . . . And we have not found, neither in the Torah, nor in the Talmud, or in the poskim [halakhic authorities] concepts or laws indicating when to recognize or not to recognize a state. This is nothing but a custom employed by gentiles for propaganda purposes.24

Or, as this was formulated in other instances—citizenship in the new state, as distinct from membership in a voluntary movement (e.g., the Zionist movement), is compulsory participation, a given reality that is imposed on the residents of the state, therefore lacking normative significance.25 It takes place within the realm of facts, not within that of beliefs. Accordingly, every assessment regarding the state and its actions (like every other mundane phenomenon) will be taken ad hoc according to the merits of the case;26 based on its link with, and assistance to, the Torah and its students; and according to the attitude of the state's leaders to the demands of the halakhah. Thus, in the words of Rabbi Shlomo Volpe, "There is no independent absolute value in the Torah except for the Holy One, blessed be He, and His service. . . . The value of the Yishuv framework and its institutions is measured only by the extent to which they bring the people of the Lord closer to the Torah, the commandments, and the faith."27 If the state, its institutions and its budgets support Torah students and bring closer those distant from the tradition, then they are judged favorably. If they deny Torah Jews what is their due and cause those close to the tradition to abandon it, they are judged unfavorably. When the state rescues Jews and contributes to protecting the lives and well-being of Jews, wherever they are, the evaluation will be positive

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(i.e., the saving of life as a religious value). When it endangers the safety of Jews, the evaluation will be negative. This criterion is used to evaluate every collective Jewish enterprise in the lands of their dispersion and remains applicable to their activity in the exile of Israel in the Holy Land. It follows that when haredi circles make their support of one government or another conditional on increased financial allocations to yeshivot and Torah institutions, for example, they are merely being faithful to their philosophy: Of what use is a Jewish state, of what use are public institutions and parliamentary committees if not for the purpose of promoting Torah study in the Holy Land? MESSIANIC APPROACHES To understand the full significance of this conception it should be contrasted with two religious philosophies opposed to it, which are espoused by those located at the two poles of the Jewish religious ideological axis: the Neturei Karta and Satmar hasidim, on the one hand, and the school of the Merkaz Harav Yeshivah and the leaders of Gush Emunim, on the other. 1. The anti-Zionist haredi worldview of Neturei Karta and Satmar hasidim perceive the Zionist enterprise and the establishment of the State of Israel as an antimessianic act, conceived and born in sin.28 It vigorously denies the very legitimacy of the collective political return—the handiwork of man—to the Holy Land and to Jewish sovereignty. The Jewish people had been sworn to political quietism. They were adjured, in the words of the Midrash (as expounded by Rashi), not to return collectively by the exertion of physical force to Eretz Israel, not to "rebel against the nations of the world" and "not to hasten the End."29 In short, they were required to wait for the heavenly, complete, miraculous, supernatural and metahistorical redemption that is absolutely distinct from the realm of human endeavor. Such waiting over two millennia is the manifestation of the very essence and singularity of the Jewish people; it expresses faith in divine Providence, in the assurances of the prophets and in the messianic destiny. The Jewish people have been removed from the causal laws that govern nature and history, and they are bound, in an exclusive manner, by another set of religioethical laws within a causal process of reward and punishment, exile and redemption: "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman keeps vigil in vain" (Ps. 127:1). Accordingly, any Jewish political revival that is not messianic intrinsically represents a denial of divine Providence and of the hope of redemption, and is a betrayal of the destiny and the uniqueness of Israel. The attempt to hasten the End, to return by physical power to the sphere of political—and certainly, military—history is a collective revolt against the kingdom of heaven, an aggressive aspiration to overstep the boundaries into the realm reserved for the Holy One, blessed be He—just like the deeds of the generation of the Tower of Babel. It is depicted as an act of the devil, a demonic outburst of unclean forces, which may not be corrected; it is ultimately doomed to failure, regardless of human deeds: "The Lord shall rebuke you—the Satan who has chosen Jerusalem."30


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In other words, their fierce opposition to the State of Israel is not directed against its secular nature or against its laws and mores, but rather against its very existence, regardless of its nature. In the words of the late Satmar rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Moshe Teitelbaum, "Even if the members of the Knesset were righteous and holy, it is a terrible and awful criminal iniquity to seize redemption and rule before the time has come."31 According to this logic, for example, the concepts "Torah state" or "halakhic state" are contradictions in terms; any Jewish state prior to the messianic age—by the very nature of its human, natural, mundane provenance—undermines and denies the Torah and takes a stand against the halakhah. The faithful, therefore, are not enjoined to struggle for the refashioning of the Jewish character of the society and the state, but are required to isolate themselves unqualifiedly, to separate themselves socially from the majority of the people of Israel and politically from the State of Israel. Consequently, any use of the budgets and institutions of the Zionists is utterly forbidden and the members of these circles do their utmost to deny themselves any benefit from them. In short, the only hope for this state lies in its total destruction, "But [we] need mercy that this kingdom will be destroyed only by a force from above, by the Lord, may He be blessed, not by the [non-Jewish] nations; for if, God forbid, this is to be done by the nations, it will, of course, constitute a great danger for Israel."32 The Zionist endeavor is destined to make way for the true, complete, miraculous salvation, for the redemption that will rise on its ruins, as its total negation. 2. At the other end of the ideological continuum, we find an opposing image of historical reality, one, paradoxically, that shares an identical theological premise with the former school of thought. Redemptionist Zionism, from the school of the Merkaz Harav Yeshivah and Gush Emunim, perceives the Zionist enterprise and the establishment of the State of Israel as a messianic step, conceived and born in sanctity. At bottom, it also denies the legitimacy of any Jewish renewal or return to Zion that is not within the category of the decisive, ultimate redemption; it does not, however, admit to any dichotomy between the current and the messianic return. In the words of Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Hakohen Kook, the late head of the Merkaz Harav Yeshivah, "Our reality is a messianic reality" and "The true redemption is revealed in the settlement of the Land and the rebirth of Israel in it."33 Accordingly, we are called on to discern in the as-yet incomplete processes of the present far more than meets the eye. The return to Zion and Jewish political independence are intrinsically sanctified because they embody a human response to a divine call. This is not insolence toward heaven or "hastening the End"; on the contrary, the country is built by force of the redeeming divine Providence, which leads by "historical necessity" and by "cosmological decisiveness" toward perfect fulfillment in all spheres, both material and spiritual.34 This philosophy also accords inherent religious content to the fact of Jewish political sovereignty, a normative meaning that is not conditional on specific laws and mores of the state or on the choice and decision of its members. According to the logic of the Neturei Karta, the original sin is rooted in the very existence of the state and cannot be corrected or purified, but according to the logic of the messianic approach, the positive essence of the state cannot be destroyed or damaged. The Zionist enterprise will inevitably lead to repentance and redemption. The times are

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those of the ultimate realization of history, the revealed End from which there is no turning back; its beginning guarantees its end. True, it is within our power to accelerate this process or to delay it, to remove obstacles in its path or to erect them. But nothing can alter its preordained direction or its inevitable destination. A favored metaphor used to explain this idea is that of a person traveling on a train who can assist or hold back the engine's progress but who is powerless to change the course of the tracks or the final destination of the journey. These have been laid in advance, by the Cause of all causes, leading toward repentance and redemption. The common denominator of these two conceptions is that, a priori, they impart theological significance to the very existence of the State of Israel; both react to historical events through the messianic perspective and the hope of redemption and both reject any return to Zion and Jewish revival that are not complete and ultimate. Each adopts an out-and-out deterministic approach to the historical process: the future is fixed and clearly revealed in accordance with ultimate destiny and the fate of the Zionist enterprise is predestined and predictable, either as curse or blessing, according to its inherent religious essence. A STATE WITHIN THE SECULAR REALM The prevalent outlook of the decisive majority of haredi Jewry rejects these basic assumptions shared by the two poles. The State of Israel was conceived and born neither in sanctity nor in impurity. Its very existence, its historical creation, does not represent a messianic process, just as it does not represent an anti-messianic process. It is an intrinsically neutral phenomenon, lacking any specific religious significance, and therefore it and its institutions are entirely judged according to its approach to the Torah and Torah scholars.35 Its future has not been predetermined: the people will choose its way and, consequently, its fate. Judgment is suspended. Indeed, some formulations of this position include direct criticism of the theologies that are to its right and left. At times, it presents itself as a median position between the two opposing and errant extremes. At other times, it presents itself as agnostic in principle to the messianic question, as an approach that denies human beings any claim to knowledge concerning heavenly plans. The median position is clearly stated by Rabbi Binyamin Y. Zilber: Just as we have not contracted with the Lord of Israel to eliminate the exile and to bring about the redemption, so, too, have we not entered into a contract to make specific efforts to remain in exile, and to be scattered and dispersed among the nations. . . . Both versions [of the oath as interpreted by Rashi] that Israel will neither "hasten" nor "prolong" [the End] are, rhetorically speaking, true.36 Any tendency toward either pole brings bad results; "We will follow the king's highway, turning off neither to the right nor to the left." [Num. 20:17]. We are not among those who calculate the End, give it names, [for example,] the beginning of the redemption, the beginning of the beginning . . . neither are we among those who say that at present there is no obligation of aliyah, and that even promotion of the settlement of Eretz Israel oversteps the vow not to return to the land collectively.37 Rabbi Avraham Weinfeld represents the agnostic position:


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There are those who view this as praiseworthy and as the beginning of the redemption, and there are those who see the entire existence of the state unfavorably, claiming that it is against the Torah, and the work of the devil. . . . This [debate] has already gone beyond the bounds of the halakhah for which there are Torah sources; thus we feel our way as the blind in the dark, without any clear knowledge as to whether this is to be judged positively or negatively; therefore, we must admit that we do not comprehend the nature of this reality; in order to do so, we require prophecy and divine inspiration.38

This position appears to be consistent, simple and clear. In contradistinction to the two previous opposing approaches, it seems not to be in need of complicated ideological structures or tortuous theological justifications. For example, when in the wake of the Six Day War, the "Zionists" reached Judea, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, the Satmar rebbe felt the need to write a special essay (" 'Al hageulah ve'al hatemurah" ["On Redemption and Change"]) in order to explain their success as a temptation of the devil and as a test with which the Holy One is trying the truly faithful of Israel. So, too, on the opposite side, redemptionist religious Zionism was forced to contend with unanticipated events that appeared to be a retreat in the process of redemption such as the withdrawal from Sinai and the evacuation of the Yamit region. These were explained in a convoluted way as descent for the purpose of an eventual ascent and as a national will that had failed and that had not raised itself to the heights of the divine will.39 On the other hand, the prevalent haredi outlook is exempt from the troubles besetting these two approaches in that it neither pins its hopes on the downfall and failure of the state nor foresees with certainty the state's triumph and divine vindication. It consciously refrains from absolute theological and historiosophical claims regarding the State of Israel. Later we shall discuss the internal dilemma that does confront this outlook. At this point, however, it should be presented as it defines itself, within the terms of its declared axioms and self-awareness. For example, in recent years Rabbi Eliezer Menahem Shach has used the same midrashic oaths quite differently from the Neturei Karta and Satmar hasidim. The oath not to rebel against the gentiles provided him with a rationale for warning the Israeli government against engaging in adventurist military actions or political acts that provoke the gentile nations (e.g., the settlement of Judea and Samaria and the Lebanon War).40 That is to say, these prohibitions have been placed in a pragmatic and practical context rather than in a theological one. So, too, the Lubavitcher rebbe and others consistently inveigh against trespassing into the realm of the destined miraculous redemption. Such statements, however, are no longer directed at the invalidation of the principle of Jewish political sovereignty per se but against any conception that places the State of Israel within the frame of reference of redemption, that is, against those religious Zionists who seek to impart messianic significance to the State of Israel.41 In sum, the present historical occurrences and activities are neither conceived as hastening the End nor as the revealed End. The haredi approach also differs markedly from the non-messianic religious Zionist worldview that imputes positive religious significance to the current Jewish rebirth and partial historical realization in Eretz Israel as both an auspicious opportunity and a halakhic challenge. It recognizes a median situation—neither exile nor

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redemption. According to the haredi approach, on the other hand (as explained above), whatever is not in the category of redemption is, by definition, in the category of exile. It therefore must diminish the image of the mundane sociopolitical rebirth and negate the essential significance of renewed Jewish historical initiative (not only in the messianic context).42 This approach oscillates between two poles: 1. Rabbi Yitzhak Ze'ev (Velvl) Halevi Soloveichik of Brisk, who lived in Jerusalem, once heard a member of Neturei Karta curse the State of Israel, to which he exclaimed, "This man is a Zionist." How so? 'In Poland or in Russia would he thus curse the authorities? Would he act like this in America?' Since he acts differently here, then he must necessarily find a different essence in the Jewish state, a unique experience. 'He must therefore be a Zionist.' " Rabbi Hayim Ozer Grodzinski, one of the leading Torah scholars of the Holocaust generation, also seems to have intended this in his response to the view that a Jewish state would constitute a violation of the oath taken by Israel not to "rebel against the nations." If a Jewish state were indeed established, Rabbi Grodzinski said, it would also be a "nation" among the nations of the world, and the prohibition of rebelling against the nations of the world would apply to it as well!43 These two statements give expression to a complete value neutrality toward the meaning of the Jewish return into political history. The statements are not directed toward the nature of the Jewish state and its laws and mores, but rather toward its institutional, technical and administrative existence (noted earlier). Its existence, as such, has been emptied of any specific Jewish significance: a nation among the nations. As Rabbi Velvl's approach was later summed up by his nephew, Rabbi Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveitchik, "No place was found for the state in his system of halakhic thought and in his scale of halakhic values. He was incapable of translating the concept of secular political sovereignty into halakhic content and values."44 Or as Rabbi Hayim Ozer Grodzinski put it in 1937, "Even if such a state were to be founded, it would be, at best, a state whose rulers are Jews, and not a Jewish state."45 Such fine scholastic expressions, characteristic, in the main, of the Lithuanian yeshivah circles, reflect the consciousness of exile in its most pristine, most consistent and most alienated form. Reality, of course, is more complicated and complex, and it often does not correspond to such precise formulations. For example, the haredi community does not recite prayers for the welfare of the State of Israel, as is customary for every other state in which Jews live, despite the claim that Israel is a state like any other. To refrain from doing so, for fear that it be interpreted as support of Zionism, indicates that the State of Israel is, nonetheless, different from all other states.46 The declaration of indifference toward the uniqueness of the new political-historical reality, it seems, has been unsuccessful. If this is so, it means in practice that Israel's specific nature as a Jewish state—and as a secular Jewish state—is not ignored and that the fine line separating the political-institutional and the ideological-normative realms is not easily maintained. In any event, it is precisely this consciousness of exile that removes Israeli affairs and political realities from the dimension of religious values and of Jewish uniqueness that, paradoxically, enables haredim to accept coexistence with the


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state. It also facilitates pragmatic political and economic cooperation with the authorities, just as Jews have always done throughout the centuries of their exile. In the words of Rabbi Meir Karelitz, "In all the countries of the nations of the world, Jews would seek a shtadlan [intercessor] who would act on behalf of haredi Jewry within government circles; therefore, if there is a possibility of including within the government of Israel a shtadlan who will be on guard for the affairs of Torah Jewry, then this must be done, unhesitatingly."47 Or, as it was put by Rabbi Raphael Reuven Grozovsky, the head of the Council of Torah Sages in the United States during the last generation, "There are those who compare this situation to that of Joseph [in Egypt], of Mordecai, Daniel and Nehemiah [in Persia], Rabbi Samuel Hanagid [in Granada] and Abravanel [in Portugal and Spain], and many shtadlanim among Israel."48 Thus the emissary of haredi Jewry to the political institutions of the State of Israel is perceived as a shtadlan, in a long chain of shtadlanim, who acts within a "nation" among the nations. These spokesmen thereby seek to avoid coming to grips at the value level with the profound change that has taken place in the situation of the Jewish people, a change that has actually confronted them with an exceptional and unanticipated historical entity: Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land prior to the messianic era, led by transgressors.49 2. This approach is not followed by all haredi circles and neither is it applied under all circumstances. Other voices, which assess current events in the light of a religious perspective and search for the hand of divine Providence as revealed in historical occurrences, are also to be heard among hasidic circles such as those of Gur and Lubavitch and on occasion among mitnagdic Torah scholars. These voices are heard mainly in times of dramatic historical events such as the Balfour Declaration, the establishment of the state and the Six Day War. The most far-reaching statements were made during the first years of the state, by Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin, the political leader of Agudat Israel (and the son-in-law of the rebbe of Gur). Rabbi Levin, who also served for over four years as a minister in the Israeli government, spoke publicly about the "State of Israel that was established with manifest miracles," the "wondrous vision of the beginning of the ingathering of the exiles," "the finger of God" as revealed in the establishment of the state and "the hand of divine Providence which directs the steps of the State of Israel" in its land.50 The sense of salvation and greatness of the hour was marked in statements made at the time by various hasidic leaders.51 Similarly, in 1949 dozens of rabbis from different circles signed a pre-election announcement that included the expression, "the first buddings of the beginning of the redemption with the establishment of the State of Israel" (this was here, of course, only a metaphor, not a manifestation of a messianic outlook). But when the first excitement passed, expressions such as these faded and, in fact, vanished almost completely within haredi circles. Even so, more than thirty years later, the present Lubavitcher rebbe wrote about the "great and manifest miracles" that had taken place at that time52 (and regarding the Six Day War), about a "propitious hour," the "great rescue of millions of Jews in Eretz Israel" and similar expressions.53 Clearly, these spokesmen had distanced themselves considerably from the traditional apprehension about a Jewish political renaissance during the time of the exile,

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and they did not feel the need to declare apathy and neutrality toward the historical dimension. But for this very reason their statements tend to emphasize another aspect of the traditional haredi argument with Zionism, focusing on the secular nature of the state and the society and on the acts of the transgressors who became the leaders of Israel—legislators and ministers. It is precisely the sense of salvation and the awareness of the uniqueness of the events for Jewish history that motivate the confrontation with secular institutions and individuals and that guide their attitude to the question of Torah observance in Israel. It cannot be ignored, because this, and only this, will decide the fate of Israel for good or ill. The haredi way of thinking teaches that the active responsibility of the Jew is limited to the religiousspiritual sphere, whereas the responsibility for the fate and the mundane prosperity of the Jewish people rests solely in divine hands. The theses of conventional historiography must therefore be reversed. It is not the secular Zionist who creates the opportunity, the greatness of the hour; on the contrary, his rejection of the yoke of the commandments and his violation of the covenant represent the danger of missing the hour appointed by heaven. He embodies the very antithesis of the opportunity, the challenge and, needless to say, the future redemption. The Lubavitcher rebbe for example draws the following picture of the rebirth of the state, the hope and the missed opportunity: The Holy One, blessed be He, the source of good and mercy, who performs miracles and wonders and who changes all systems, is the one who created, by His inner intent, the causes which led to the miracles and the great rescue of millions of Jews in Eretz Israel, for during those years the time was propitious, and there was a will from above. . . . After the Holy One, blessed be He, saw the suffering of His people Israel, that they were being slaughtered and massacred, Heaven forbid, in horrible and awful persecutions, He gave them the opportunity in the midst of the time of exile, to conduct themselves in all their affairs according to their will, in an organized fashion, with their own institutions, and thus tens, hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of Jews came to a place of refuge in Eretz Israel. . . . Indeed, if the people of Israel had utilized the favorable moment and had acted properly, this would have been a wonderful opportunity for it to prove that it was already worthy of redemption. But instead of this, the leaders argued whether or not to mention the Name of God in the well-known Declaration [of Independence],54 and whether to be dependent upon Moscow or upon Washington, but the essential thing they forgot and abandoned, because they had decided to be like all the nations in internal affairs and matters of law. They based the existence of the large community of Jews in the Holy Land on foundations that have nothing in common with the Torah of Israel, and in several matters they opposed the Torah of Israel, may the Lord save us, and thus, to our great sorrow, once again Israel did not succeed in rising above itself, to seize the opportunity, and to prove that the redemption can indeed be revealed [emphases in original].55

Israel's rebirth and development are thus the results of heavenly initiative and visitation. If previous Lubavitcher rebbes fiercely opposed the Zionist enterprise and predicted its inevitable failure,56 historical success is here portrayed—after the fact—as divine confirmation of the legitimacy of collective Jewish action (as long as we realize that this takes place "in the midst of the time of exile"). Nevertheless, great and wondrous as the hour and events may be, they do not have the


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capacity to confer legitimacy on a secular national awakening, to a collective Jewish enterprise that entails transgression. Thus, an acute tension is created, a profound gap between the revelation of the divine face, as manifested in the mundane political success of the people and the masking of the human face that is apparent in the religious-spiritual fall of the people. This gap is the cause of the missed opportunity—indeed, it is itself the missed opportunity. Not surprisingly, the holder of these views intervenes regularly in the general affairs of the state on a broad agenda of issues ranging from religio-national identity ("Who is a Jew?") to foreign affairs and security. He seeks to influence the activities of all Jewry in a wide range of areas and does not limit his activity and confrontation merely to the specific affairs of the haredi community. Clearly, this approach sees Israel no longer as a nation among all the nations, but rather as a unique Jewish reality; thus, we are not exempt from the obligation to struggle over its image, to guide it and to redeem it from both spiritual and physical danger. This pattern of haredi response, which emphasizes the greatness of the hour and warns against the missed opportunity, at times spills over into the school of the Lithuanian yeshivot as well. It should be noted that a common threat underlies their reaction to historical events as exemplified here: When the British government published the well-known Balfour Declaration regarding Eretz Israel, the Hafetz Hayim [Rabbi Israel Meir Hakohen] viewed it as a form of divine intervention toward redemption, but said that he feared lest the non-religious would spoil it, heaven forbid. He used to say that on many occasions there had already been a propitious hour, but that the people of [previous] generations had spoiled it [his son's testimony].57

It was stated—even in the name of Rabbi Yosef Hayim Sonnenfeld, the leader of the anti-Zionist 'edah haredit in Jerusalem: Let us assume that rain had not fallen for two thousand years, and a small cloud was suddenly seen in the sky; would not everyone become excited and say, "Perhaps nevertheless, perhaps nevertheless." And is not the British Mandate at least such a cloud?" 58

Again, twenty years later, when the British government presented the Peel Commission report for the partition of Palestine, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Tzerelsohn, president of the knessiyah gedolah of Agudat Israel, found in it the hand of "divine Providence, embodied in the order of the British government," adding his hope that the Torah scholars, not "our non-religious brethren," would have the upper hand in the leadership of the future state because "ultimately the truth, namely—the Torah— should win."59 His expectation has not yet been fulfilled, as is clear from the statement later attributed to Rabbi Yitzhak Ze'ev (Velvl) Halevi Soloveichik of Brisk, ' 'The agreement of the United Nations for the establishment of the state was a smile by divine Providence, but its rulers spoiled it." Similar sentiments were also cited in the name of Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian, one of the leaders of the musar movement.60 Let it be clear: in all these examples, the religious consciousness concentrated (not without reason) on the political initiatives of non-Jews (albeit under divine

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direction) and not on Jewish deeds (that is, Zionist initiative). The references are all to international decisions in which the gentiles suddenly treated the Jewish people generously, taking positive decisions with regard to its political rebirth and right to the Holy Land.61 Such acts naturally aroused associations with the distant past such as the proclamation of Cyrus;62 they were depicted as a significant change in the status quo that had characterized the relations between Israel and other nations throughout the generations ("It is known that Esau hates Jacob"), and they were thus to be viewed in a theological perspective. Moreover, the spheres of political and mundane activity were divinely entrusted to the gentiles; their actions and initiatives toward Israel, therefore, were of particular significance. The people of Israel, on the other hand, were not entrusted with such historical initiative. Their responsibility was limited to the sphere of religious response, Torah study, prayer and repentance. It was only the rise of secular Zionism that presumed to overturn this situation. In the words of Rabbi Elijah Dessler, a leading exponent of musar philosophy a generation ago: The Lord, may He be blessed, has returned many Jews to Eretz Israel and they rule it, and those who have cast off the yoke of the Torah boast as if they brought this about by their mightiness, and the greater their arrogance the more will their insolence increase, and the more God forbid will their desire to introduce heresy strengthen. This is the last trial of the exile of the shekhinah, the most difficult trial. . . . Those who claim that we have done our share—we came to Eretz Israel, we fought over it and we rule it—and the Holy One, blessed be He, will do His share, and that, as time passes faith and piety will increase, are completely mistaken.63 We must realize that they confuse that which is in the hands of the Lord and not in the realm of [human] choice—for "the Lord is a man of war" and His hands have performed all this—with that which is incumbent upon us to do and which is not in the hands of heaven—because "everything is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven." Those who withstand, forcefully and with spiritual might, this difficult test of the false opinions of "my strength and the power of my hands" . . . and who devote themselves to the inner service of Torah, prayer and the fear of heaven, are the ones who shall merit the complete redemption by our righteous Messiah, speedily in our days.64 These two haredi responses—the one of religious indifference to the politicalhistorical dimension and the other moved by the ways of Providence in current history—come together at this critical juncture. They share a common consciousness of exile that does not allow an effective place for mundane Jewish activity, for a collective national initiative that shapes the course of history. The first response, when confronted with Jewish political sovereignty in pre-messianic time denied it any specific Jewish significance and portrayed it as a nation among other world nations. The other response rejected from the outset, as it were, any idea that the Jewish people were active in creating and shaping the mundane political sphere, and it attributed all this to the non-Jewish nations (and to the Creator). Both take the view that mundane political activity oversteps the bounds of the Torah into the secular world—in other words, that it is removed from the bounds of authentic Jewish activity. The Jewish people leaves "everything in the hands of heaven, except for the fear of heaven."


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CHANGE IN POLITICS AND CONSCIOUSNESS In the past years a number of influential Israeli secular writers have dealt with the roots of the tension in Jewish tradition between religion and state and religion and nationalism. For example, Gershon Weiler has argued that the Jewish religion by its very nature does not allow its followers to accept the authority of Jewish political sovereignty because of its fidelity to theocracy—rule of heaven.65 Or, as A. B. Yehoshua claims, the Jewish people has found itself from the dawn of history in perpetual conflict between the religious and national spheres. By choosing exile, Jews are liberated from the need to make a decision between the two and to take on the full burden of national responsibility.66 Although religious Zionists must respond to these claims in terms of their own beliefs, haredi Jews simply evade the argument by resorting to the concept of exile in both its aspects—the metaphysical-theological and the social-existential. It is precisely the consciousness of exile that permits adaptation to the State of Israel and acceptance of its authority ("They shall not rebel against the nations"). There is no need for a principled long-range solution to decide the questions of the source of the authority or the status and validity of human government. In current (pre-messianic) time, a pragmatic, accommodationist solution is sufficient, as was customary for Jews under gentile domination throughout the world. Similarly, with regard to the other argument, those who seek to distance themselves from comprehensive, historical-political responsibility need not go into geographic, physical exile. Exile in the Holy Land occurs in time and not in space. It permits passivity and spiritual introversion in Eretz Israel itself. An acute dilemma is revealed at this point as a direct result of the positive changes in the political power and standing of the haredi circles in the State of Israel in the past decade. For such a worldview (or state of mind) is possible only from a position of weakness, from a social position on the margins of society. It is nurtured by, and constructed from, the self-consciousness of a minority on the defensive, of resident aliens in their own land—politically, economically, sociologically and psychologically. In the past few years these groups have been propelled from the margins of the Israeli political arena into its center, to a position of decision-making authority and responsibility that had not been chosen initially by their leaders and that they now have difficulty in absorbing. Certain political developments in Israel—pertaining to coalition politics; demographic, electoral and ethnic changes; and to a loss of self-confidence on the part of the secular majority of society67—have suddenly provided haredim with power and influence, both material and spiritual, to a degree far exceeding that required by, and appropriate to, a life based on a qualified acceptance of a strange and alien reality. These developments have increased their direct involvement in questions of society and economy, land settlement and foreign policy and peace and war to a degree that is inconsistent with their intellectual and psychological inclinations, based as these are on passive ex post facto adaptation and on retreat and spiritual turning inward.68 On the other hand, once power and responsibility have been conferred, they are not easily waived or abandoned.

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We shall illustrate this in one area, that of political involvement. In 1949 after Agudat Israel had joined the Israeli government (within the framework of the United Religious Front with the other religious parties), Rabbi Aaron Kotler, a leading rosh yeshivah in America, sharply censured its coalition participation at the Agudat Israel convention in the United States. It showed lack of fidelity to principles and was pragmatically unwise. But he praised the Marxist-oriented Mapam (of all parties) for not joining a government with whose basic principles it disagreed. The emissaries of haredi Jewry, he insisted, had a much greater chance of reaching goals and attaining concessions from their natural place outside the government. In response to this criticism, Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin, Aguda's representative in the Israeli government, wrote to New York providing a dramatic description of the scenario to be expected if it were not for the influence and presence of religious cabinet ministers in government institutions: the railway would run on the Sabbath, the State of Israel would openly import non-kosher meat, yeshivah students would all be drafted into the army, the independent haredi hinnukh 'azmai educational network would be seriously impaired and other religious needs would not be supplied.69 The general tone of this response was that of a minority group, threatened and besieged by the secular majority, seeking to salvage what it could and to defend its soul and that of its children. This was further illustrated in an apologetic article published by Agudat Israel alongside Rabbi Levin's letter, expressing the haredi situation and consciousness as follows: It is essential for haredi Jewry that its representatives sit in the government. . . . Unfortunately, we do not possess the institutions around which we could unite and straggle against the tremendous torrents that inundate us from every side. We are weak; the strong instruments are in the hands of our opponents; separated and divided, we stand against storms that threaten to annihilate us, God forbid. Laws that will injure our innermost being will make our situation tragic and unbearable, and we must therefore maintain our guard and repulse the attacks against us from within the government.70

Paradoxically, membership in the government was not presented here as an expression of strength, but rather as one of weakness. The cabinet minister does not seek power or national leadership; instead he is required to stand in the breach, to serve as a barrier against the attacks of the well-organized secular public. Thus, the political involvement of haredi Jews was not directed on the practical level toward the enactment of religious legislation, but rather toward preventing the passage of anti-religious legislation.71 Fears were even expressed that the aliyah of haredim would be actively hampered by the responsible officials.72 An upheaval had taken place in Jewish history: those who had recently constituted the overwhelming majority of the Jewish people had now become few in number and were called on to defend the very right of the minority to live its life according to its faith and its customs. In the words of the prolific and influential haredi writer Rabbi Moshe Sheinfeld: The first to be exiled in the State of Israel was the shekhinah ... the spirit of the Torah and its commandments were driven out from the courts, the schools, the army, the sessions of the Knesset, the city streets, and the government ministries, into the remote corner of synagogues and study halls. . . . Thus we have come from the exile of the shekhinah to the exile of the Torah-observant in the State of Israel. Years ago those


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throwing off the yoke of the Torah demanded from us an attitude of toleration and freedom of conscience for themselves. Today we demand for ourselves the freedom to enjoy the Sabbath rest in our special neighborhoods, a right enjoyed by all the ghetto dwellers in the countries of the non-Jews [emphasis added].73 Agudat Israel left the government in 1952 over the specific issue of the drafting of young women into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF); but it thereafter remained outside the cabinet as part of a general decision to refrain from bearing overall ministerial responsibility for the actions and failings of the sovereign secular Jewish government.74 The very policy that had previously been advocated by Rabbi Kotler was finally adopted by the haredi leadership under the guidance of the Council of Torah Sages. It was no longer a patchwork solution of political participation as a reflection of weakness, but rather the demonstrative choice of a remote existence, of opposition in principle to the ruling majority. For the next twenty-five years, the Aguda followed a political pattern aptly described by Zalman Abramov:75 The Neturei Karta attacks Agudat Israel for its participation in the Knesset, and Agudat Israel replies with an attack upon the National Religious Party for its membership in the government. Thus, in 1965, Rabbi Shach criticized the political activity of the Mizrachi: "The state is not a state of halakhah, but rather a state of [secular] law. . . . And for this they compromise, and in this they participate and share in responsibility. Where is this liable to lead?"76 Given recent changes the very same criticism clearly applies to the representatives of haredi Jewry, including those who accept the direct authority of Rabbi Shach. During the last decade haredi members of the Knesset have attained key positions before the formation of every coalition and, at the same time, benefited from the rising strength of a nationalist right that views them favorably. This has resulted in a new, clever and effective pattern: participation in government in ministerial roles—no; support for the government coalition as a quid pro quo for achievements in the religious sphere—yes; chairmanship of key Knesset committees such as the Finance Committee and the Labor and Social Welfare Committee— yes; appointment as deputy minister—yes. Thus, the traditional policy is maintained formally, but involvement and power have, in fact, continued to increase. When to this is added the formation of a new, ethnic-type party (Shas—Sephardi Torah Guardians), which is close in spirit to Ashkenazi haredi circles but not committed to their traditional anti-Zionist political position77 and which, therefore, is ready to join the government in ministerial positions,78 we can understand the strength of this new trend. Significantly, the Knesset seats that went from the Aguda to Shas remain under the authority of Rabbi Shach, who allows its members somewhat greater flexibility.79 This change is not limited to the political realm; it is rooted in extensive cultural, demographic and economic processes that have occurred in Israeli society, but it is political life that has exposed them to the public eye. A THEOLOGICAL AND EXISTENTIAL DILEMMA These developments currently pose a direct threat to one of the central concepts of haredi self-consciousness in the State of Israel—that of exile. This holds true with

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regard to both aspects of exile mentioned earlier: alienation (the absence of home) and a downtrodden existence in the theological sense (the opposite of redemption). As to the first, the nature of the dilemma troubling haredi circles is clear, for example, from a complaint that appeared in 1984 in Hamodi'a, the Agudat Israel newspaper: ' 'In the last seven years haredi Jews have swarmed through the Knesset building—from all points of view a negative phenomenon. We must examine whether we have not begun to think that this is our building."80 In other words, a building that is intended, in the haredi view, to be a focal point of exile, of shtadlanut, is liable suddenly to resemble a home and the sensation of being alien is likely to fade.81 The writer specifically attributes the beginning of this phenomenon to the political upheaval of 1977 that brought the right-wing Likud to power and warns of the creation of a broad gap between the ideological doctrine, on the one hand, and the new psychological reality, on the other hand—a reality that is gradually and imperceptibly being fashioned as a result of increasing political, social and economic involvement. A comparison of current developments with Y. Gitlin's programmatic essay of 1959, Yahadut hatorah vehamedinah (Torah Jewry and the State), further illustrates this point. He wrote: Abstaining totally from the acceptance of government services is a burden that the community cannot bear. . . . Obviously, it is no tragedy also to use the right to vote and elect representatives to government institutions who will defend to the hilt the rights of the Torah, and express a more public protest from the Knesset rostrum—on condition, of course, that they do not take any step that entails bearing shared responsibility for the government of the state as a whole [emphasis added].82

As we noted, initially the declared attitude of haredi Jewry toward the State of Israel was de facto recognition and post factum participation, not de jure recognition and involvement on principle; pragmatic cooperation, not long-term ideological solutions. Emerging reality, it seems, is gradually undermining the validity of this position. From the moment that participation in institutions also entails the adoption of a comprehensive national policy, taking a position with regard to long-term issues and undertakings and engaging in decision making that concerns the funding of secular-state educational and cultural institutions, one draws close, indeed, to a more active and a priori acquiescence. Paradoxically, this change is one of the major reasons for the present escalation of the public conflict between haredim and secular Israelis. A consciousness of exile is by its very nature a moderating factor. The exilic Jew always knew how to come to terms with a given reality, to restrain himself and to wait patiently until the storm had passed. Exile is the period of non-realization, of deficiency and half- and quarter-solutions. In the words of Maimon the Dayan (the father of Maimonides), "While the stream destroys walls and sweeps away stones, the pliant object remains standing. Thus is the exile. . . . The Holy One, blessed be He, saves the pliant nation."83 The more that this factor decreases, the more the feeling of gradually striking roots and of achievement and fulfillment increases (even if it remains undeclared), the greater the motive for confrontation. From this point on, the responsibility of the haredi Jew is not restricted to what happens in certain enclaves in Jerusalem and Bene Berak, but covers the larger "home," including secular


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neighborhoods such as Rehavia in Jerusalem and north Tel-Aviv. It is highly implausible that persons who find themselves in a pivotal position with regard to major national questions such as the convening of an international peace conference (Rabbi Shach) or the development of the Lavi aircraft (as occurred in the case of the chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee Avraham Shapira) will adopt a stance of passivity and resignation only with regard to religious issues. This open confrontation also reflects an additional inner tension. The increasing involvement described here is restricted to functional areas, to the political and economic realms of "this world," but it is not expressed in cultural terms and does not profoundly touch the life of the haredi individual. A profound gap still exists between haredi society and the secular community (and even modern Orthodoxy) with regard to patterns of education, culture and creativity. Moreover, various processes such as the unprecedented growth of Torah study and of haredi yeshivot, on the one hand, and a decrease in the Judaic education and links to tradition among broad sectors of secular society, on the other hand, have only served to deepen this gap. These factors are reinforced by late entry into the work force, which results in the postponement of daily contact with the external environment, and a steady increase in exemptions from military service among haredi youth, who are thus excluded from one of the most decisive socialization experiences of Israeli society. These (and other) facts clearly prevent the creation of a culture and mentality common to both the majority and the minority. They create difficulties for the construction of a shared language—not to speak of a common faith and lifestyle. Under these circumstances, public ferment becomes inevitable, creating conflicts and clashes for which Israeli society may be ill prepared. The theological dilemma is even more profound. The basic assumption that permits the majority of haredi Jewry—as distinct from Neturei Karta and Satmar hasidim—to coexist alongside the State of Israel is a complete and consistent separation between the longed-for future redemption, on the one hand, and Jewish political organization in current (pre-messianic) time, on the other. As the rebbe of Lubavitch put it a few years ago: Since there is such a large ingathering of Jews, they must have leadership (and not a kingdom, God forbid, because there will be a kingdom only upon the coming of the Messiah), so that there will be order, both in internal affairs and in their dealings with kings and ministers of other nations, and similarly in matters of security, vehicles, etc., as is the natural way of things; however, it should be remembered that all this has no connection with the matter of redemption.84 Having come this far with the secular national community founded by the Zionists, however, the haredim, who preferred to place themselves consciously and as a matter of principle in a remote corner of this community, now find themselves propelled into its center. Thus, willingly or unwillingly they occupy a position of influence and decision-making responsibility. Assuming that they were able to go beyond the constant struggle for religious legislation and succeeded in establishing in the Holy Land a state based entirely on Torah law, would this not, as well, threaten to hasten the End? In other words, would not a Jewish people who had gathered in its exiles, returned to its land, freed

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itself of foreign oppression, to whom the land has given its fruits, and who had repented and built its life according to the Torah have to be regarded as reaching at least the outer edge of the redemption? And having attained all this gradually and naturally by human action, would it not mean that they had "forcefully and collectively returned" and intruded into the sphere of authority of "the presumed Messiah" (in the words of Maimonides)?85 In view of the fact that the Zionist enterprise was founded against the explicit wishes of the leading Torah scholars of previous generations and was characterized for many years by the abandonment of religion and the rejection of Jewish law, the theological dilemma is even sharper. Can the wicked bring about good things? Can the Holy Land be rebuilt in a profane manner? It should be noted that traditionally haredi circles, with Agudat Israel at their center, did not seek to engage in a comprehensive struggle for the establishment of a Torah state.86 It was the moderate Mizrachi religious Zionists who made much of this slogan, declaring their aspiration to fashion the public and government character of the sovereign Jewish state according to halakhah. On the other hand, haredi demands either did not focus on this goal or simply refrained from promoting it;87 and for good reason. At the conscious level, this aspiration was, in fact, presented as unrealistic and unattainable, but it seems that at a much deeper level it exposed the substantive dilemma confronting these circles. The concept' 'Torah state'' in the pre-messianic era blurs the boundaries between current historical reality and the vision of the future redemption, between the actual and the Utopian. In short, it over-extends in both practice and theory. In the current historic era, religious meaning is totally exhausted within the confines of the life of the individual and the community. The traditional organization of haredi Jewry into separate communities and residential neighborhoods and the self-isolating hinnukh 'azmai school system,88 therefore, reflected a declared restriction of the bounds of direct responsibility, a conscious intent to concentrate on shaping the character of a specific group, one that lives entirely within the world of Torah and on which the spiritual welfare of the world depends. Political activity was thus initially directed toward the defense of the rights and interests of Torah-observant Jewry, not toward the establishment of the Torah state. It must be remembered that every mundane event during the time of exile is intrinsically transitory and random. The life of exile is "a life lived in deferment, in which nothing can be done definitively, nothing can be irrevocably accomplished. . . . There is nothing concrete which can be accomplished by the unredeemed."89 Recent developments threaten to undermine these basic assumptions; they threaten to blur the boundaries between on the one hand, the domain of the individual and the sacred community—which live in historical time—and, on the other, the domain of the nation and the restoration of its kingdom—a matter for the messianic era. This may be looked at from another angle as well. Those who speak for haredi Jewry have traditionally made use of those Jewish sources in which the future redemption is depicted as an apocalyptic phenomenon—a transition from one extreme (darkness) to the other (light), an upheaval that is not built on present reality, but that totally negates it. We find throughout Jewish literature that manifestations of heresy and religious apostasy and of moral and social deterioration are taken as


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clear signs of the "birthpangs" of the Messiah and the redemption. For example, a well-known passage in the Mishnah (tractate Sot.) provides a long list of the calamities destined to befall society on the eve of the redemption. Some of these calamities are material, "Prices will rise . . . the Galilee will be destroyed . . . the Golan will be desolate." But most are spiritual and moral, entailing a precipitous fall by the public and its leaders: Insolence will increase ... the kingdom will become heretical, and there will be none to [voice] rebuke, the study hall of scholars will be a place of licentiousness, the wisdom of the Scribes will be despised, the truth will be absent, youth will put the elders to shame, a son will make light of his father, a daughter will rise against her mother, the countenance of the generation will be as the countenance of the dog, a son will not be ashamed before his father; and upon Whom will we rely? Upon our Father in Heaven.so

It should come as no surprise that haredi rabbis and writers referred to such extreme formulations in criticizing and explaining current events. The depictions of redemption breaking out from the depths of degradation, from the pits of spiritual and material disintegration, matched the consciousness and experience of these religious leaders, who longed for the final redemption but were deeply disturbed by the falling status of Torah in Israel, on the one hand, and by the physical distress of the Jews, on the other. This picture of religious transgression (alongside physical distress and persecutions) as the birthpangs of the Messiah, as the harbinger of the redemption, has been extremely popular in haredi intellectual, homiletical and polemical literature of the past few generations, right up to the present. For some, the expression "the footsteps of the Messiah" serves mainly as a rhetorical device; for others, it provides an important linguistic and conceptual pattern that assists in dealing with contemporary events; whereas, for still others, it is charged with a concrete internal messianic tension—the actual anticipation of the drumbeats of the redemption springing forth from the depths of crisis. Some detailed works trace the signs and manifestations of the "footsteps of the Messiah" in current historical reality. One important example is the extremely influential (and recently re-printed) essay by Rabbi Elhanan Bunem Wasserman, 'Ikveta dimeshiha (The Footsteps of the Messiah), written on the eve of the Holocaust: The period that we are now experiencing is a special period, particularly for the life of Israel. We are witnesses to phenomena that we could never have imagined. . . . If we wish to understand the essence of the events in our lives, we must search for the verses and the teachings which pertain to the period of the footsteps of the Messiah. ... It is written in Daniel that the distress of those days shall exceed anything that has befallen Israel since it became a people, that is, it will exceed in scope even the distress of the destruction of the Temple. ... In Ezekiel it is prophesied that in the time of "the footsteps of the Messiah" they will proclaim the slogan, "Let us be as the other people." . . . All humanity is seized by a spasm of excitement. It seems that we are dwelling in a dense forest amidst angry and predatory animals. . . . During the footsteps of the Messiah the rule of the Torah will be routed. . . . [And, indeed, we see that] only national feeling is demanded of the Jew: the person who buys the [Zionist] shekel and who sings Hatikvah is exempt from all the commandments in the Torah. It is

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clear that this approach is considered to be idolatry according to the Torah. ... In our days, which are the footsteps of the Messiah, in which the heretics are the leaders of the generation, and do not permit Torah scholars to raise their heads, and wage open war upon the Torah. . . . [There is] a terrible situation the likes of which we have not experienced since Israel became a people.91

In other words, the entire world is in ferment—all are at war with all, Israel is persecuted to an unprecedented degree, religious transgression has reached previously unknown depths. All these, however, prophesy the advent of a new world order and a new Jewish spiritual condition that does not flow naturally from the present reality, but rather contradicts it and completely uproots it. This is a paradoxical conception of redemption: "the footsteps of the Messiah" and "the Messiah" do not lie side by side on one continuum, but rather at two opposing points. The light will come and drive out the darkness. In the words of the Hafetz Hayim, Rabbi Wasserman's mentor, ' 'There is no doubt that our time is that of the footsteps of the Messiah ... the foundations and principles of our holy Torah have been abandoned, God forbid, . . . and reason dictates that the arrival of our righteous Messiah will not be prolonged further, for we find ourselves on such a level that it is not possible to be worse and sink lower."92 If Jews had deserved it, they would have been saved from the evil of "the footsteps of the Messiah"; since they have not, the redemption will come after a terrible fall, when Jewry is at its lowest ebb. "The King-Messiah must come speedily, for in a little while there will not be anyone for whom to come!"93 Such rhetoric and patterns of thinking are prevalent now as well.94 They provide a conceptual framework that facilitates the expression of sharp criticism against the secular Jewish state, its laws and mores, along with the anticipation of salvation. In the words of Rabbi Shach: All the signs that the Sages transmitted to us in their holy spirit, at the end of the tractate of Sotah, of what will happen during the time of the footsteps of the Messiah ... all have been fulfilled in the state and its laws, for does not the [Israeli] law of commonlaw marriage fall under what the Sages said about "place of licentiousness?" And similarly, the law permitting abortions increases licentiousness, for shame has been removed. "A son is not ashamed before his father" and "a daughter is rising against her mother," and "those fearing sin are rejected" and "the truth is absent"—everything is done brazenly . . . and "the entire government has turned to heresy," afraid to mention the name of God.95

Israeli reality thus reveals new facets in the midrashic depictions of the "rising insolence" on the eve of the redemption and provides new interpretations of the horrors of "the footsteps of the Messiah." Given these patterns of thought, is it at all possible to present a model of a legitimate Jewish state, in current historical time, that constitutes neither redemption, on the one hand, nor the most terrible birthpangs of redemption, on the other? Is it possible that a proper Jewish sovereignty can avoid the birthpangs of the Messiah but is not their complete, anti-messianic antithesis? Furthermore, if such an interim historical entity were possible, can it arise gradually—step-by-step, law by


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law, repentant Jew after repentant Jew—from within a reality that has been depicted for several generations as complete spiritual calamity, as the very insolence and abandonment of religion? Such an evolutionary approach, it seems, completely contradicts the presuppositions and apocalyptic expectations of a total upheaval, of a sudden change from one extreme to the other. According to Rabbi Wasserman, "Since the suffering of the Jewish state is liable to be the greatest suffering, we must hope that this will bring the redemption closer, just as it was in Egypt, when enslavement brought the End closer."96 Or, as Rabbi Shach put it, " 'Let him come, but let me not be a witness to his coming' [BT San. 98a] ... a state of [secular] law and not a state of halakhah, i.e., a state with the laws of the idolaters and not a Torah state."97 On the other hand, after being pushed from the sidelines and propelled into the center of activity, is it still possible not to strive to reform and achieve gradual, stepby-step victories? These elements all join together to create the fundamental internal dilemma (just described) that stem from the danger of blurring the boundaries between goals appropriate for current history and the prophetic goals connected with the Last Days, which means the danger of hastening the End and trespassing against the realm of the Messiah.

DEVELOPMENTS WITHIN VARIOUS SCHOOLS We have analyzed the anti-Zionist polemics of some leading Torah scholars at the inception of the Zionist movement. We now conclude with a number of illustrations that compare the statements of early scholars with the views and attitudes of their contemporary followers, again focusing on the two main hasidic dynasties of Lubavitch and Gur as well as on the Lithuanian yeshivot. In 1900 the Lubavitcher rebbe Shalom Dov Ber Schneersohn, it will be recalled, ruled that even if the Zionists strictly followed God's commandments, the Torahfaithful Jew is forbidden to join them and to seek redemption by human efforts.98 The rebbe forecast that the Zionist initiative would fail: The Zionist idea contains all manner of poison which destroys and tears apart the soul— all their force and many stratagems and strivings will be to no avail, and they will not succeed against the will of God. . . . The counsel of the Lord shall remain steadfast, and He alone will gather us from the four corners of the world."

His son and successor, Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn, reiterated the call "to separate from this congregation . . . which is striving to come up to Eretz Israel, contrary to the law of the Torah and contrary to the command and the prohibition of the Lord."100 Neither did he spare Agudat Israel and its hasidic leader, the rebbe of Gur, who indeed separated from the Zionists and refrained from direct cooperation with them, but who was actively engaged in the material development of Eretz Israel in "establishing a society for the settlement of Eretz Israel by building workshops and factories." Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak strongly opposed all secular activity and mundane

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labor in Eretz Israel. Past Torah leaders, according to his claim, "did not permit the defiling of the Land by any form of material thing, stores, workshops and factories!"101 On the other hand, the current Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menahem Mendel, rules Kfar Habad, whose livelihood is based on "workshops and factories" and whose influence extends to many other material activities as well. Moreover, he grants explicit legitimacy to collective political and military Jewish organization in the Holy Land, "in matters of defense, vehicles and horses," and his followers are deeply involved in many spheres in the state. (Part of this discrepancy is resolved by maintaining that the state exists "in the time of the exile," thereby preventing a verbal contradiction with the statements of his predecessor, who opposed going out from the exile by "material powers and strategems.") Moreover, after the Six Day War, the rebbe stated publicly that the merit of those who participated in the war was even greater than that of those who studied Torah.I02 No wonder that such constant involvement in the affairs of the State of Israel attracts the criticism of the contemporary extreme haredi anti-Zionist camp. It bluntly censures the close contact that the Lubavitch court maintains with ' 'heretical and inciting rulers . . . who have been seated as welcome guests at the head of the mass assemblies with the rebbe, while royal honors are bestowed on them."103 It appears that Habad hasidism has moved in practice (if not in theory) from its traditional approach, which demanded greater separation from the Zionist enterprise than did other haredi circles, to its current approach of maintaining more contact with the Zionists and their leaders than do other contemporaiy haredi circles. Essential differences, however, remain. The present Lubavitcher rebbe also postpones the time of the ingathering of the exiles until after the longed-for appearance of the Messiah and the miraculous reconstruction of the Temple. In practice, he directs his followers to maintain each of the Jewish Diasporas until the actual messianic revelation. In this he completely repudiates a central Zionist doctrine. 104 Neither is the hawkish political stance characteristic of Habad today identical ideologically with that of any Zionist party. That stance has been summed up by Rabbi Aharon Dov Halperin, editor of the Kfar Habad journal, as "total opposition to Zionism and nationalism, coupled with a stringent prohibition against handing over a single inch of the territory that the Lord has granted us."105 Needless to say, the profound messianic tension to be found in Habad hasidism is utterly detached from the State of Israel and its enterprises.106 It focuses on the spiritual effort, the acts of self-sacrifice performed to draw the hearts of the Jews closer to their Father in heaven, and on the personal figure of the rebbe, "the faithful shepherd, all of whose words are truth and righteousness."107 By way of contrast, from the very outset the rebbes of Gur hasidism did not oppose settlement or other forms of material activity in the Holy Land as constituting the hastening of the End. As early as the end of the previous century, the rebbe, Rabbi Aiyeh Leib Alter, regarded aliyah as blessed, even though he refrained from ruling officially in its favor.108 His son and successor, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai, encouraged haredi settlement in Eretz Israel, in theory and practice, and went there himself in 1940, fleeing the Holocaust.109 He is also reported to have responded positively to the UN decision to establish the State of Israel.110


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These more positive attitudes toward settling the Land of Israel notwithstanding, the opposition of both rebbes to the Zionist movement and to cooperation with secular settlers remained implacable. Rabbi Aryeh Leib taught his followers that "Zionism ... is apostasy and heresy, God protect us, and whoever adheres to it, is as if he adheres to idolatry." He also warned against any connection with the Zionists, "An upright Jew should not join together with the wicked, i.e., the Zionists" [1900].111 His hesitation with regard to a formal positive ruling on the question of settlement was explained, inter alia, in terms of his apprehension about "the sects of wicked unbridled ones that have spread in Eretz Israel and in Jerusalem" [written in 1891].112 Rabbi Avraham Mordechai likewise continued to oppose the Zionist movement and was careful to lead Agudat Israel "without associating with the wicked and the different, even in the fulfillment of a commandment."113 After his son-in-law and subordinate Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin returned to Poland in 1935 from a visit to Eretz Israel, he sharply attacked the Mizrachi movement, which stood by in the face of the utter destruction that secular Zionism and anti-religious nationalism is wreaking on the souls of Israel . . . and silently accepts the matter. It even views itself as a religious party while cooperating with the anti-religious elements; instead of waging war against the anti-religious who are destroying Judaism, they act with them in love and fraternity.114 Rabbi Levin later became the leader of Agudat Israel and its representative in the Israeli government; he was sharply attacked by separatist haredi circles for his own cooperation with the secular Zionists. In any event, the two rebbes who have led Gur hasidism during the period of the state, Rabbi Yisrael Alter and Rabbi Simha Bunem Alter, permitted and expanded such an involvement; under the leadership of the latter, the haredi town of Emmanuel was established in Samaria, to the displeasure of Rabbi Shach, his partner at the time in the leadership of the Council of Torah Sages, who saw this as an act of provocation against the non-Jews. The longtime political representative in the Knesset of Gur hasidism, MK Avraham Shapira, was totally immersed in parliamentary and economic activity and could no longer be presented as "living in a remote corner." Of course, the distinction between opposition to Zionism as a "doctrine" and actual participation in Israeli politics is maintained. Only recently, Rabbi Pinhas Menahem Alter, the rosh yeshivah and currently the leading spokesman of Gur hasidism, protested, "Agudat Israel was created to confront the heretical movements, chiefly the Zionist movement. . . . Because of certain circumstances, we have been forced to base our establishment upon their money, organizational instruments and political patterns."115 It is somewhat ironic that such statements are made by the religious leader who counts Shapira, chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee and the head of the Advisory Council of the Bank of Israel (and sometimes jocularly referred to as "the country's director-general") among his loyal followers. The Lithuanian yeshivot circles that tend to play down the religious dimension of historical events have changed less. From the very beginning of the Zionist awakening, their polemics focused to a greater degree on the rejection of religious obser-

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vance by the Zionists and the secular nature of the national movement than on the theological question of the hastening of the End and the collective return. To be sure, this fierce opposition has not yet abated. There is little to distinguish between the approach of Rabbi Hayim Soloveichik of Brisk at the birth of Zionism from that of Rabbi Velvl Soloveichik after the establishment of the state,116 just as the criticism leveled at the time against the Zionists by the Hafetz Hayim and Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman are once more extensively cited today, and they buttress the attacks made by Rabbi Shach and his circle. As Rabbi Shach quipped, "When I will be asked by the heavenly court why I did not identify with the Zionist idea, I will unhesitatingly place the blame for this on the Hafetz Hayim and all the leading scholars who preceded me, and they will already know what answer to give."117 There is nothing new under the sun. To the contrary, manifestations of identification or temporary excitement such as raising the Israeli flag on Israel Independence Day on the roof of the Ponevezh Yeshivah (which was the practice of Rabbi Kahaneman, who preceded Rabbi Shach as head of the yeshivah) or other such phenomena that appeared in the wake of the Six Day War have since ceased. The fact that Lithuanian circles did not undergo serious change (as in the case of Habad hasidism) or a softening (as in the case of Gur hasidism) highlighted the gap between their ideological opposition to Zionism and blunt criticism of Israeli society, on the one hand, and their holding of key political positions and participation in fateful national decisions, on the other. Apart from that of the Neturei Karta, the most extreme rejection of Zionism appears in the Lithuanians' newspaper Yated neeman: We do not protest against the anti-religious acts of party X. ... We demonstrate against the entire Zionist enterprise in Eretz Israel. The leading Torah scholars already warned, at the birth of Zionism, that whoever thinks that the Zionist goal is the establishment of a state, errs. Their goal is the uprooting of religion.118 Concrete events and transient political change should not have any effect on this ideological opposition in principle. As Rabbi Aaron Yeshaya Rotter commented, after the political upheaval in 1977 that brought Agudat Israel into the government coalition: No change at all has taken place in this state due to the new government; it remains the same state that declared that the House of Israel would be as all the nations, Heaven help us. All the laws enacted in the Knesset are laws that the transgressors of the most serious transgressions have drafted, and we declare that we have no portion or inheritance in them.119 On the other hand, it appears that the opinion of no other spiritual leader in Israel on issues concerning the coalition and the government or war and peace is more important in practice than that of Rabbi Shach, for, during the Eleventh Knesset (1984-88) two Israeli political parties were within the range of his direct authority (Agudat Israel obeyed the Gur rebbe and Rabbi Shach; Shas obeyed Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef and Rabbi Shach. Thus these two small parties have the power to tip the balance between the two major parties). To be sure, Rabbi Shach takes care to formulate his positions within the context of axioms characteristic of the period of


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exile. Gentile nations initiate and are active within the mundane political sphere; Jews react and respond and do not rebel against them, although they do not trust them. Thus Israel should agree in principle to a territorial withdrawal and refrain from establishing settlements in Judea and Samaria, which would constitute rebellion against the nations of the world; but an independent Israeli initiative for an international peace conference is opposed because one can neither trust the nations who will attend the conference nor the Jordanian king. The development of the Lavi combat aircraft must be halted as it is against the wishes of the United States, and the State of Israel must not rebel against America. Thus, according to Rabbi Shach, "The Jewish people is still in exile until the coming of the Redeemer . . . and we are commanded not to provoke the nations of the world . . . [even though] this gentile today shows you a smiling face for political gain, but in truth acts deceitfully."120 In other contexts, the secular Jewish politician is the one who is portrayed in the traditional role of the gentile ruler, whereas the truly faithful Jew responds after the fact, passively and conditionally. Consequently, these circles, too, remain caught on the horns of the dilemma discussed in this essay. Neither are they exempt from the essential question of the religious significance of the historical change brought about by Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel. We see a terrible and frightening sight. A collective revolt against the kingdom of heaven. . . . There is a tremendous difference between an individual who sins in matters concerning himself, and a mass community that has organized to live systematically a life of sin and iniquity. This is especially serious when there exists a Hebrew government in Eretz Israel. . . . We are talking about free Jews, in our own state, the State of Israel, with our own president, with a government and an army, everything our own product—and who is it that prevents our holy Sabbath being observed here? It is a state of the [secular] law, and not a state of the halakhah, and in this regard things are worse here than abroad, as there everyone who transgresses commits an individual sin, while here sinning is legalized. According to our conviction and faith, those who presume to maintain the state are those who endanger it, and despite what is written in the Torah, "So let not the land spew you out for defiling it" [Lev. 18:28]; they enacted laws to permit the most severe [transgressions], such as bloodshed, as in the Abortion Law, and so forth.121 In one key respect, the style of this rebuke is reminiscent of extreme haredi opponents of the State of Israel, "A collective revolt against the kingdom of heaven." But in another respect, there are clear expressions of affinity and direct involvement, "our own state, our own president," that could not have appeared in the writings of Shach's predecessors. But rebuke and affinity are not the neutrality of remoteness; no longer is Israel portrayed as a nation among the other nations. In essence, these statements accord profound religious significance to the change that has taken place in the condition of the Jewish people in the period of the state— and they claim it specifically as a result of the precedence of Torah and halakhic criteria in judging the individual, the entire community and the country. The sin of the community is more than that of the individual. 122 It represents open opposition to heaven and a violation of the obligation of mutual guarantees. Thus from the moment that an independent Jewish collective, a community of "free Jews" has

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arisen, religious responsibilities entailing great obligation and risk have been imposed on it. Moreover, sins committed outside Eretz Israel are not those committed in Eretz Israel; life in the Holy Land demands a higher spiritual and religious commitment, especially as the Land rejects transgressors and spews them out to a place of exile. In our generation, these demands have joined together in the existence of a Jewish collective in the Holy Land. Consequently, the significance of the deeds and the severity of their punishment is multiplied. This conception is the reverse image of religious Zionism that also emphasizes the redoubled religious challenge confronting the Jewish people on its return to its land and political independence but that finds in this a glimmering of hope, an opportunity for national or religious rebirth. Rabbi Shach and the members of his circle, by way of contrast, do not recognize man-made rebirth and do not psychologically identify with the endeavor, they focus not on the opportunities but on the risk, on the severity of the law. They do, however, underline the depth of the responsibility and mutual accountability that are imposed as a result of historical developments. It is this sense of collective obligation that leads them to struggle, admonish and protest. Hypothetically, what would happen if one day they were to succeed and the nation heeded their call, grounding its collective life in the Holy Land on the Torah and its commandments? Would this not be a case of achieving a sanctified aim through impure means, a salvation originating in a collective revolt against the kingdom of heaven? Or would this perhaps fulfill the expectations of those religious Zionists who, from the outset, found a chance and a glimmer of hope in the historical process? Would it not be a hastening of the End? Is this not a struggle that it is forbidden to win—where victory is its own very defeat? The question remains. Does haredi Jewry possess a conceptual framework, a theoretical model of a legitimate Jewish state in historical (pre-messianic) time, a state that renders unnecessary the birthpangs of the Messiah but that is not the Messiah?

Notes This essay is based on a chapter of a book on messianism and Zionism to be published by Am Oved (Tel-Aviv: 1988). For background notes on this subject, see Aviezer Ravitzky, "Hazafuy vehareshut hanetunah: meshihiyut, ziyonut ve'atidah shel yisrael bahashkafot hadatiyot hahalukot beyisrael," in Aluf Hareven (ed.), Yisrael likrat hameah ha-21 (Jerusalem: 1984), 170-185. 1. Only ideological and philosophical differences will be mentioned here, though it is possible to distinguish between various groups on the basis of sociological, cultural or other characteristics. 2. See Moshe Samet, "Hayahadut bazeman hehadash," Mahalkhim 1 (1969), 2940; cont'd., 3 (1970), 15-27; idem, Hakonflikt odot misud 'erkhei hayahadut bimedinat yisrael (Jerusalem: 1969), 39—60; Menahem Friedman, "Haredim Confront the Modern City," in Studies in Contemporary Jewry 2 (1986), 75-76. On possible internal divisions within Orthodoxy, see: Jacob Katz, Leumiyutyehudit—masot umehkarim (Jerusalem: 1983), 88-90; Charles Liebman, "Religion and the Chaos of Modernity," in Jacob Ncusner (ed.).


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Take Judaism for Example: Toward the Comparison of Religions (Chicago: 1983), 147-164; Eliezer Schweid, Bein ortodoksiah lehumanizm dati (Jerusalem: 1977), 6-24: Shalom Rosenberg, "Dat veziyon," Sekirah hodshit, no. 2 (1987), 23-30. 3. Yitzhak Meir Levin, Neumim (Jerusalem: 1952), 35, 77. [Speeches from 1949 and 1950.] Levin was the leader of Agudat Israel. 4. Schneerson, quoted in Shalom Dov Volpe, Da'at torah be'inyanei hamazav beerez hakodesh (Kiryat Gat: 1982), 30, 36. 5. Rabbi Eliezer Menahem Shach, Mikhtavim umaamarim (Bene Berak: 1980), 9. 6. See Shlomo Zalman Shragai, "Medinat yisrael einah galut," in Pa'amei geulah (Jerusalem: 1963), 70-74; Meir Eidelbaum, "Bein hamizrahi leagudat yisrael," in Yitzhak Raphael and Shlomo Zalman Shragai (eds.), Sefer haziyonut hadatit (Jerusalem: 1977), vol. 1, 145. See also Moshe Samet (ed.), Hadat vehamedinah (Jerusalem: 1977), 45-46. 7. Binyamin Mendelsohn, Kuntres igerot harav (Kommemiyut and Jerusalem: 1983), 49. 8. The statement "This is not the beginning of the redemption, but rather the end of the exile" is attributed to Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz (the Hazon Ish). See Peer hador—hayei hetiazon Ish (Tel-Aviv: 1967), pt. 4, 236; Moshe Schonfeld, in Jewish Observer, October 1974. 9. Rabbi Elhanan Bunem Wasserman was the outstanding pupil of the Hafetz Hayim and one of the leading rashei yeshivah in the pre-Holocaust generation. See Hashkafatenu (Bene Berak: 1981), pt. 1, 109 (cited under the title Hashkafah tehorah odot medinat haziyonim hayedu'ah leshimzah); idem, Kovez maamarim (Tel-Aviv: 1963), 92. Cf. Gershon Bacon, "Da'at torah vehevlei rnashiah: lisheelat haidiologiah shel agudat yisrael bepolin," Tarbiz 52 (1983), 503; Menahem Friedman, "Israel as a Religious Dilemma," in Baruch Kimmerling (ed.), The Israeli State and Society: Boundary and Frontier (forthcoming, 1989), chap. 3. The Yevsektsia (Jewish section of the Communist Party of the USSR) took an active hand in repressing Jewish religion in Russia in the 1920s. 10. Rabbi Moshe Blau published his articles in the Aguda weekly Kol yisrael: his articles have recently been collected in Kitvei Rabbi Moshe Blau (Jerusalem: 1983). It should be noted that on the eve of the Holocaust Rabbi Blau viewed the persecutions of the Jews as the final undermining of exilic existence, and he foresaw a widespread abandonment of the countries of the Diaspora by the Jews (Kitvei Rabbi Moshe Blau, 190-193). After the war he did not change his opinion regarding the preference to be given to the settlement effort in Eretz Israel, but he now also appealed for the rebuilding of Jewish communities in the Diaspora, despite Zionist ideological opposition (Kitvei Rabbi Moshe Blau, 264-266). Regarding the conventional haredi argument since the Second World War that the Zionists angered Hitler by declaring open war on him and had thus made the entire Jewish people his enemy, special attention should be given to a previously unknown 1939 article written by Rabbi Blau in which he states: If war were to occur now, it will be the first time in the history of Israel since it was exiled from its land that the Jewish people will be a party to the battle, that the entire people of Israel will stand on the side of one of the combatants. ... It was not for nothing that one of the British newspapers listed the Jewish people among the nations taking a stand on the side of the democratic governments. . . . May the Lord strengthen the non-Jewish nations who are waging a righteous war, to conquer the kingdom of wickedness (Kitvei Rabbi Moshe Blau, pp. 202-204; emphasis added). Five years later, however, in response to the Zionist criticism of those rabbis who dissuaded their students from immigrating to Eretz Israel on the eve of the Holocaust, Rabbi Blau responded by attributing some responsibility for the oppressor's lust for revenge to the Zionists. In this regard, he specifically mentioned "the economic war that the Zionists had publicly declared against Hitler at the beginning of his persecution of the Jews" (Kitvei Rabbi Moshe Blau, pp. 250-251; emphases added). 11. The quotation from Blau is taken from Kitvei Rabbi Moshe Blau, 265-266. Cf. the essay by Nathan Birnbaum written in 1920, "In golus bay yiden." Gordon is quoted in Ehud

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Luz, Makbilim nifgashim (Tel-Aviv: 1985), 65-66; and Shmuel Almog, Ziyonut vehistoriah (Jerusalem: 1982), 126. 12. Yosef Salmon, " 'Emdatah shel hahevrah haharedit berusiah-polin laziyonut bashanim 1898-1900," Eshel beer sheva, 1 (1976), 377-438: idem, "Hamaavak 'al da'at hakahal haharedit bemizrah-eiropah beyahas latenu'ah haleumit bashanim 1894-1896," Perakim betoledot hahevrah hayehudit—mukdashim leYa'akov Katz (Jerusalem: 1980), 330368; Luz, Makbilim nifgashim, 69-87, 269-298; Yizhak Alfasi, Hahasidut veshivat ziyon (Tel-Aviv: 1986), 21-101. 13. Quoted in Shlomo Zalman Landa and Yosef Rabinovich (eds.), Or lisharim (Warsaw: 1900), 55. 14. "Mikhtavim mivarshah," Hameliz, no. 133 (1900). See Salmon, " 'Emdatah," 435; Luz, Makbilim nifgashim, 295-296. 15. Landa and Rabinovich, Or lisharim, 19. 16. Shalom Dov Baer Schneersohn, Kuntres uma'ayan mibeit hashem (New York: 1943), 50; idem, Haketav vehamikhtav (New York: 1917). See also A. B. Steinberg (ed.), Da'at harabanim (Warsaw: 1902)—this work contains anti-Zionist letters written under the influence of hasidic rebbes. This argument did not occupy a prominent position in the Lithuanian yeshivot, whose criticism focused mainly on the first argument. The argument regarding the prohibition of hastening the End and returning collectively enjoyed some currency in German Orthodoxy, following the teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who interpreted the prohibition as, "They will never attempt to renew their state by their own power." Of course, German Orthodoxy's opposition to Zionism was also directly connected to its positive view of the emancipation. See Mordecai Breuer, "Hadiyun beshalosh hashevu'ot badorot haaharonim," in Geulah umedinah (Jerusalem: 1969), 53. This argument also played a prominent role in the anti-Zionist polemics that took place in Hungary in the 1920s. See Moses Goldstein (ed.), Tikun 'olam (Munkacs: 1936). Regarding Sephardic Jewry, Yosef Tobi has recently noted, "The ideology which negates large-scale aliyah to Eretz Israel on clearly theological grounds . . . did not find supporters among Eastern Jewry" See his article, "Shoreshei yahasah shel yahadut hamizrah el hatenu'ah haziyonit," in Temurot bahistoriyah hayehudit hahadashah—sefer hayovel liprofesor Ettinger (Jerusalem: 1987), 169-192. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule as well; see, for example, the statement by Rabbi Hayim Palache, cited by Tobi. 17. Rabbi Moshe Natan Kahana-Schapira quoted in Steinberg, Da'at harabanim, 38. 18. See, for example, the statement by Rabbi Shalom Dov Baer of Lubavitch in Landa and Rabinovich, Or lisharim, 58. See also the Lubavitcher rebbe Yosef Yitzhak, Mikhtav 'oz shel torah (n.p.: n.d.), 11. This also appears in Moses Goldstein, Tikun 'olam, 53. 19. Dov Berish Tursch, Bar hedyah o halom Herzl (Warsaw: 1900), 41. Tursch mentions a letter he received from the Hakham Bashi in Constantinople in which it is stated that the Zionist initiative threatened to arouse the ire of the Turkish Sultan against the entire Jewish Yishuv in Eretz Israel (Setirat zekenim, 1899; see Salmon, " 'Emdatah." 391). 20. See, Menahem Friedman, Hevrah vedat (Jerusalem: 1978), 33. 21. See, Yitzhak Breuer, "Tazkir 'al yahasah shel 'agudat yisrael' lamedinah hayehudit," in Yitzhak Levin, Homer lisheelat hitkonenut vesidur hamedinah hayehudit 'al-pi hatorah (New York: 1948), 5, clause 3; Y. Gitlin, Yahadut hatorah vehamedinah (Jerusalem: 1974), 41. 22. Rabbi Raphael Reuven Grozovsky, Be'ayot hazeman (Bene Berak: 1960), 33-34. The distinction between Zionism and the State of Israel was at times formulated within a mood of excitement at the rebirth of the state (chiefly during its first years). See, for example, Hamodi'a, 22Av5711 (1951): "The basic Aguda worldview is that the establishment of the state is one of the wonders of the Providence over us, and it is an independent creation, with no connection to secular Zionism. For this reason, Agudat Israel does not view the state as a Zionist matter, but rather as a general Jewish one, which obligates every Jew to aid in its maintenance and fortification." 23. Yosef Avraham Wolf, Hatekufah uva'ayotehah (Bene Berak: 1983), vol. 1, 15. 24. Avraham Weinfeld, Sheelot uteshuvot lev Avraham, para. 129; Yoel Schwarz, Yalkut yemot 'olam (Jerusalem: 1980), 113-118.


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25. See Breuer, "Tazkir," 5, clause 3; ibid., 6, clause 6; Grozovsky, Be'ayot hazeman, 14-15. See also the article by Eliezer Don-Yehiya, "Tefisot shel haziyonut behagut hayehudit haortodoksit," in Haziyonut 9, 75. 26. Regarding this approach as characteristic of conservative stances, see Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (New York: 1936), 30. See also Bacon, Da'at torah vehevlei mashiah, 507. It should be noted that the distinction between principle and essence, on the one hand, and tools and material fruits, on the other hand, also serves the haredi society in its stance vis-a-vis basic characteristics of Western modernity such as democracy, science and economic method. Regarding the issue of the consistency and morality of this separation, see Jacob Neusner, Why No Science in Judaism? (New Orleans: 1987) 1, n. 1. 27. Rabbi Shlomo Volpe, 'Alei shor (Beer Sheva: 1978), 287. 28. I. Domb, The Transformation: The Case of the Neturei Karta (London: 5718-1958); Norman Lamm, "The Ideology of the Neturei Karta according to the Satmar Version," Tradition 13 (1971), 38-53; Allan L. Nadler, "Piety and Politics: The Case of the Satmar Rebbe," Judaism 31 (1982), 135-152; Yehudah Leibes, "Ha'edah haharedit beyerushalayim vekat midbar yehudah," in Mehkerei yerushalayim bemahshevet yIsrael 1 (1982), 137-152; Avraham Fuks, Haadmor misatmar (Jerusalem: 1980). 29. See Song of Songs Rabbah 2:7; BT Ket. 111a. 30. See Zech. 3:2: "The Lord rebuke you, O Satan, the Lord rebuke you that has chosen Jerusalem." The usual interpretation of this verse is, "The Lord, Who has chosen Jerusalem, will rebuke you, O Satan.'' The commentary of the Satmar rebbe (following that of Azariah of Pano in the book 'Asarah maamarot, "The Lord will rebuke you, O Satan [i.e., Zionism], who has chosen Jerusalem." See Yoel Moshe Teitelbaum, Vayoel Moshe (New York: 1978), "Maamar yishuv erez yisrael," para. 68, p. 266; para. 149, p. 361. 31. Teitelbaum, Vayoel Moshe, "Maamar shalosh hashevu'ot," para. 85, 103. 32. Ibid., intro., 8. 33. Zvi Yehudah Hakohen Kook, Linetivot yisrael (Jerusalem: 1967), 188-195 (this essay was written in 1953). See Ravitzky, "Hazafuy vehareshut," 146-166, and the literature listed there. 34. Ibid., 158. 35. I remember the response of my grandfather, of blessed memory, the hasidic rabbi Abraham Roest, when as a child I asked him why the prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel was not recited in the synagogue of the Gur hasidim. His response, "The state belongs to Mapai!" That is to say, because it was controlled and led by secularists not because of its inherent nature as a state. 36. See the commentary of Rashi on BT Ket. 111a, capt. shelo yirhaku et hakez. 37. Binyamin Y. Zilber, Mekor halakhah (Bene Berak: 1961), "Halifat mikhtavim," 88. Rabbi Menahem Mendel Kasher disputed this statement without mentioning the author (". . . and I saw [a work] by an important author in Eretz Israel"). See Hatekufah hagedolah (Jerusalem: 1972), 221. 38. Weinfeld, Sheelot, para. 129. 39. See, for example, Eliezer Waldman, 'Al da'at hazeman vehamakom (Kiryat Arba: 1983), 62; Ya'akov Ariel, " 'Al mah avdah haarez," in 'Olah min hamidbar (Yeshivat Yamit: 1985), 93-95. Hanan Porat spoke of "the national will" that had disappointed instead of acting courageously. 40. This is also true regarding the Golan Law, the production of the Lavi aircraft and other such issues. 41. See the rebbe's statement cited in Volpe, Da'at torah, 24, 30, 35-37. 42. Rabbi Kalman Kahana, the leader of Poalei Agudat Israel, adopted another view that imparts positive religious significance to the very fact of political rebirth, thereby drawing closer to the position of religious Zionism. See his article "Hatorah bamedinah, habe'ayah hakelalit," Hama'ayan (Tishrei 5715 [1954]). 43. See Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, Lev ibrah (New York: 1957): Yisrael Schzipansky, "Geulat mizrayim, geulat bavel vehageulah he'atidah," Or hamizrah 22, no. 77 (Tishrei 5733 [1972]),'205n. 44. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, Divrei hagut veha'arakhah (Jerusalem: 1982), 89.

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45. See Gitlin, Yahadut hatorah, 30. 46. Jacob Katz, "Orthodoxy in Historical Perspective," in Studies in Contemporary Jewry 2 (1986), 15. 47. Lehasir masveh (Jerusalem: Histadrut agudat yisrael ha'olamit, 1951), 12. 48. Grozovsky, Be'ayot hazeman, 15; see also n. 26. 49. Katz, "Orthodoxy," 15. 50. Levin, Neumim, 27-28, 35, 42, 77, 93. For his response to the Six Day War, see also his biography written by his associates, Haish ufo'alo (Jerusalem: 1972), 71. The Aguda press contained an inordinate number of responses such as this in the wake of the Six Day War, which was depicted as a "chain of miracles, a combination of one miracle with another, the wondrous beyond all wonder" (Hamodi'a, 12 Tammuz 5727 [1967]; cf. Diglenu, Tammuz 5727; Beit Ya'akov, Tammuz 5727 and Elul 5727). Cf. also what was written in this press about the miracles that'were revealed during the War of Independence (e.g., Hamodi'a, 22 Av 5711 (1951]) and during the Sinai campaign (e.g., Hamodi'a 1 Kislev 5717 11957] and 5 Kislev 5717; Hakol, Heshvan 5717). For Neturei karta criticism and Agudat Israel's later "disavowal" of Levin's statements, see Ha'edah haharedit, Lehasir hamasveh (Jerusalem: 1950). See also the harsh attacks that were delivered later by one of the leading spokesmen of this circle, Rabbi Yerahmeel Yisrael Domb, in Kuntres 'al hanisim (Jerusalem: 1957), and in Kuntres 'et nisayon (Jerusalem: 1972), 96-101; see also, Histadrut Agudat Israel Lehasir masveh, 68. 51. Kasher,Hatekufahhagedolah, 204-210; Friedman, "Religious Dilemma"; Harry Rabinowicz, Hasidism and the State of Israel (London and Toronto: 1982); Yarhon beit Ya'akov, Tevet 5726 [1966], 52. Volpe, Da'at torah, 23-24. 53. Shalom Dov Volpe, Shalom, shalom, veein shalom (Kiryat Gat: 1982), 34; Yedi'ot aharonot, 24 July 1967, article by Gershon Yaakobson. See also the statement by the rebbe on the miracle of Entebbe, Volpe, Shalom, shalom, 117; Hazofeh, 28 August 1976. 54. It seems that the rebbe intentionally refrained from using the term "independence." 55. Volpe, Da'at torah, 23-24. 56. See the sources listed in nn. 15, 16, 99, 101. 57. Shmuel Greineman (ed.), Hafez Hayim 'al hatorah (Bene Berak: n.d.), 101. For the religious excitement that the Balfour Declaration caused among Eastern Jewry, see Yosef Yoel Rivlin, "Pa'amei geulah—pizmonei tefilah utehilah lehazharat Balfour uminui Sir Herbert Samuel lineziv 'elyon beerez yisrael," in Minhah leavraham (Almaliach) (Jerusalem: 1959), 40-48. 58. According to the testimony of Yitzhak Breuer, in his book Moriah (Jerusalem: 1982), 197. See also Yitzhak Schwartz and Yitzhak Goldstein, Ziyon beit hayeinu (Jerusalem: 1980), 104. 59. Kasher, Hatekufah hagedolah, 202. See also the statement by Yitzhak Breuer, "I had already earnestly requested, at the third Knessiyah gedolah (1937): Tell us openly if the Mandate is from God or the work of the devil, for otherwise this is impossible, but I did not receive a reply" (Moriah, p. 215). See also Gitlin, Yahadut hatorah, 27. 60. See Shlomo Volpe, Ben sheshet le'asor (Jerusalem: 1976), 145. 61. Within the Gur hasidic court as well, they viewed the Balfour Declaration as a "hint from Divine Providence." See the statement by Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin in Kol yisrael, 16 Kislev 5693 [1933]. See Yitzhak Alfasi, "Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter migur veyahaso leyishuv erez yisrael," in Bishvilei hatehiyah 2 (1987), 121. 62. A direct parallel between the Balfour Declaration and the proclamation by Cyrus was drawn by Shmuel Bornstein, the Sochaczew rebbe. See Zvi Yehudah Mamlak, Abir haro'im (Piotrkow: 1935), sect. 1, 106. 63. The allusion apparently refers to versions of religious Zionism. 64. Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, Mikhtav meeliyahu, sect. 3,218. (The original punctuation has been altered in the interests of clarity.) 65. Gershon Weiler, Teokratiah yehudit (Tel Aviv: 1977).


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66. A. B. Yehoshua, Bizekhut hanormaliyut (Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: 1980). 67. Add to this the drop in political power of religious Zionism and its loss of confidence. See Eliezer Schweid "Lean mu'adot panav shel hazibur hadati," Kivunim 13 (1982), 15-28; Nahum Arieli, "Haideiah haziyonit hadatit—hatiferet vehakishalon," Kivunim 29 (1986), 25-46; Mikhael Zvi Nehorai, "Hitnapzutah shel tenu'at haziyonut hadatit," Nekudah 83 (February 1985). 68. Yoel Schwartz, Binu shenot dor vador (Jerusalem: 1984), 96-99; Yisrael Rozen, "Haziyonut hadatit hahadashah," 'Emdah 11 (June 1986), 14-15. 69. See Histadrut Agudat Israel, Lehasir masveh, 6-12. 70. Ibid,, "Saviv lahishtatfut bamemshalah," 26. 71. See S. Zalman Abramov, Perpetual Dilemma (New Jersey: 1976), 157; Friedman, "Religious Dilemma," chaps. 4-5. 72. See the memorandum by Rabbi Moshe Blau regarding the question of a constitution for the State of Israel, in Yitzhak Levin, Homer lisheelat, 19. 73. Moshe Sehinfeld, in Diglenu, Tishrei 5711 [1951]; also published in Hashkafatenu (Bene Berak: 1978), sect. 1 (n.p.). 74. "Because of collective responsibility . . . because of the educational harm, because each member of the government must naturally justify all actions of the government" (Rabbi Aharon Yeshaya Rotter, in Hashkafatenu. 75. Abramov, Perpetual Dilemma, 162. 76. Shach, Mikhtavim umaamarim, 46. See also Abramov, Perpetual Dilemma, 160, regarding the sharp criticism by M. K. Moshe Lorencz of Agudat Israel (in 1960) concerning the coalition responsibility assumed by the National Religious Party (NRP). 77. We should not overlook the fact that Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, the head of this movement's Council of Torah Sages, served in the past as chief rabbi (a state-sanctioned office) and that the political leader of this movement, Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, also studied in religious Zionist educational institutions. 78. See, Rosenberg, "Dat veziyon," 28. 79. Shas is entirely under the authority of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef and Rabbi Shach; see n. 80. 80. The article was written by Y. A. Schneider. He added, "We are anti-Zionists, and no one can do anything about this. . . . Our central struggle with Zionism is still unfinished. It is still underway, it still exists," see also, Yisrael Volman "Hakol kodesh," 'Emdah 5 (February 1985). 81. This phenomenon is naturally noticeable among haredim in Israel but not among those abroad. See also, Aharon Lichtenstein, "The Relationship to Israel of Jewish Religious Groups: Orthodoxy," Publications of the Study Circle on World Jewry in the Home of the President of Israel (Jerusalem: 1984). According to Lichtenstein, the very fact of shared life in Eretz Israel, "in the same boat," leaves its mark. A clear example of this is contained in the statement during the Six Day War by Rabbi Yehezkel Levinstein, the mashgiah ruhani (spiritual supervisor) of the Ponevezh Yeshivah, who stressed the feeling of fraternity of all Israel at such a time, the shared danger and the shared sense of salvation that followed. See, Kovez 'inyanim shehishmiy'a maran hamashgiah biyeshivat ponevezh be'et hazarah hamilhamah vehayeshu'ah (1967), 9, 15, 20; Kovez 'inyanim shehishmiy'a maran hamashgiah biyeshivat ponevezh biyemei elul 5727—tishrei 5728, 3, and elsewhere. 82. Gitlin, Yahadut hatorah. 83. Rabbi Maimon Hadayan, Igeret hanehamah. See Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson, Rezef utemurah (Tel-Aviv: 1984), 150. 84. Volpe, Da'at torah, 30. 85. Maimonides, Mishneh torah, hil. Melahhim 11:4. See Aviezer Ravitzky, "Yemot hamashiah bemishnat harambam," in Zvi Baras, (ed.), Meshihiyut veeskhatologiah (Jerusalem: 1983), 195-196, 203-206. 86. Yitzhak Breuer differed from his colleagues on this issue, as on other issues. See, for example, Moriah, 224. See also Yaakov Levinger, "Haziyoni halphem baziyonut," in Sefer Barukh Kurzweil (Tel-Aviv: 1975), 151-168.

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87. See Yeshayahu Wolfsberg, "Hamizrahi ve'emdato legabei haortodoksiah habilti ziyonit," in Yehudah Leib Maimon (ed.), Yovel hamizrahi (Jerusalem: 1982), 256-268. 88. A distinction obviously must be made between this haredi approach and that of the extreme separatist circles from the Old Yishuv; see also Friedman, Hevrah vedat, 222, 226. 89. Gershom Scholem, Devarim bego (Tel-Aviv: 1976), 190. See also Arieli, Haideiah haziyonit hadatit, 29. 90. Mishnah, tractate Sot. 9:15. Ironically, the last section of the mishnah, which teaches passivity (reliance on the salvation of the Lord), was interpreted as a curse, not as a blessing, "And they say in the name of the author of Hefesh hahayim [Rabbi Hayim Volozhiner] . . . that the last things in this mishnah are a curse as well . . . For the Godfearing in those days will despair and their will to wage the war of the Lord will be weakened." See Wasserman, Kovez maamarim, 92. 91. Rabbi Elhanan Bunem Wasserman, 'Ikveta dimeshiha (Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: 1952), 6ff. (This essay was also published in Kovez maamarim, 106ff., in two different versions.) See n. 9. 92. See Moshe Prager (ed.), Leor haemunah (New York: 1958), 6, 12. Cf. Greineman, Hafez Hayim, 228. 93. Rabbi Yehezkel Levinstein, "Hovat hahithazkut be'ikveta dimeshiha" (published together with the work by the Hafetz Hayim, Kuntres zipita lishu'ah (Jerusalem: 1978), 27. 94. These patterns are also used in Satmar and Neturei karta circles, but for them the very establishment of the Jewish State constitutes "the footsteps of the Messiah" in its worst horrors. 95. Shach, Mikhtavim umaamarim, 6. (Shach stresses that changes of government in Israel do not change matters, neither for better nor for worse.) The phrase "footsteps of the Messiah" also appears in the writings of the Lubavitcher rebbe, but he uses it in a different sense. See Volpe, Da'at torah, 38. Cf. the appeals by his predecessor, in "Lealtar ligeulah," Arba'ah kol hakore mehaadmor shelita milubavitsh (Jerusalem: 1953); see also Prager, Leor haemunah, 82. 96. Hashkafatenu, sect. 4, 109. 97. Shach, Mikhtavim umaamarim, 6. 98. See nn. 15, 16. 99. Shalom Dov Baer Schneersohn, Igrot kodesh (New York: 1982), 130. 100. Moses Goldstein, Tikun 'olam, 46; Y. Y. Schneersohn, Mikhtavim, 6. 101. Moses Goldstein, Tikun 'olam, 51; Y. Y. Schneersohn, Mikhtavim, 9. 102. Volpe, Shalom, shalom, 34. 103. Yeshayahu Binyamin Holzer, Yelamed da'at (New York: 1984), 15. 104. See n. 4. Only the Messiah will gather in the dispersed of Israel; therefore, an entire Diaspora, even one such as that in South Africa, is not to be uprooted from its location. This is not the case in regard to the settlement of individual Jews in Eretz Israel, which is to be encouraged. 105. Kfar Habad, 20 Adar I 5743 (1983). 106. It should be mentioned that both the messianic tension present in Habad hasidism at present and that manifest in redemptionist religious Zionism base themselves directly on Maimonides. These phenomena raise a question with regard to the claim of those scholars who found in Maimonides' works only elements neutralizing the actual messianic tension. Cf., Amos Funkenstein, Hapasiviyut kesimanah shel yahadut hagolah: mitos umeziyut (TelAviv University Press, 1982), 8; Ravitzky, Yemot hamashiah, 208-210. 107. Volpe, Shalom, shalom, 20. The messianic tension noticeable today among Habad circles, which also revolves around the personality of the rebbe, was sharply criticized by Rabbi Shach in various contexts. See Shach, Mikhtavim umaamarim, 18; cf. exchanges on the subject in Yireb hakahal veyishoot (Kfar Habad: 1982); Kfar Habad 1983 (Centenary issue). Volpe, Shalom, shalom, 564-572; Ravitzky interviewed by Nadav Shragai, Haaretz, 6 March 1987. 108. See his letter written in 1891 that is appended to the end of the book of his


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predecessor Rabbi Yisrael Meir Alter, Hidushei haRYM vegur Aryeh Yehudah (Warsaw: 1892); Moses Goldstein, Tikun 'olam, para. 60, 72-73. 109. See Rabbi Yisrael Meir Alter, Osef mikhtavim (Augsburg: 1947), 63-67. 110. Alfasi, "Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter," 130. 111. Quoted in Landa and Rabinovich, Or lisharim. 112. The letter mentioned in n. 108. 113. Yisrael Meir Alter, Osef mikhtavim, 26. 114. See Haish ufo'alo, 44. 115. An interview in the weekly Erev shabbat; cited by Yisrael Wolman, in "Hakol Kodesh," 'Emdah (February 1985). 116. The sympathy of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, Rabbi Hayim's grandson, toward the Zionist enterprise is not relevant, because he left the haredi circles and led American modern Orthodoxy. 117. Y. Y. Schneersohn, Mikhtavim, 20. 118. Yeted neeman, 20 April 1986. 119. See Hashkafatenu, sect. 1 (n.p.). 120. This policy of exile was recommended by Rabbi Shach's predecessors who directly criticized the new winds of activism affecting the Zionists. See Greineman, Hafez Hayim, Deut.; Wasserman, Kovez maamarim, 124-125; Shach, Mikhtavim umaamarim, 910; Shach, "Masa maran haGRAM Shach 'al hok hagolan" [stenciled sheet]. 121. Shach, Mikhtavim umaamarim, 6, 13, 34-35. 122. See Rabbi Isaac Arama, 'Akedat Yizhak, Gen., chap. 20; Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed 3:51.

Israeli Democracy in Transition Itzhak Galnoor (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

The flight from freedom and responsibility has never lacked appeal in an ever more complex civilization.—George Mosse1 Democracy is threatened when its citizens cease to feel that the general course of events is positive. The cumbersome process and the slow pace of governing in a democracy need not be a problem, however, so long as citizens appreciate the existence of rights and opportunities for influence. This is the meaning of what is called the democratic way of life. Beyond this article of collective faith, democracy has two additional requisites. First, it demands a communication network to bridge whatever divisions exist in that society. In other words, there is no need for complete unity or permanent cohesion, only a common language for doing politics. The second necessity is a governing mechanism with a sufficient level of steering capacity, namely, an ability to engage in goal-oriented activities.2 Once these requisites are met the more conventional elements of democracy such as participation and the citizens' ability to have an impact on government steering can be examined. In this article I shall concentrate on these two requisites only: the way in which the Israeli political system has coped with the main social divisions and the relationship between the governing mechanisms and the democratic rules of the game during forty years of independence. Accordingly, this essay focuses on the ability of the Israeli democratic system to solve not only the security and economic problems but also to cope with threats of internal breakdown. Such a threat could evolve if there were no communication network or if the existing one were not to function politically to bridge internal divisions. It could also happen if there were no steering capacity or if the existing political helm were not capable of guiding society toward solving problems and the pursuit of common goals. The three social divisions, discussed here, have posed such problems for the Israeli political system. They are difficult to bridge and there is a potential danger, particularly with two of them, that they could cause a breakdown. The more general question, therefore, is: What kind of problems have they posed for the democratic political system in Israel and what kind of answers have evolved during those forty years? 126

Israeli Democracy in Transition

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ISRAELI DEMOCRACY: THE ENVIRONMENT Israel has changed and its society has undergone a transformation since the establishment of the state in 1948. How much of this can be attributed to external events, particularly to the ongoing conflict between Jews and Arabs? War is an upheaval in the life of every society, and it subjects the democratic state in particular to a supreme test of proving its ability to guarantee survival. The significant milestones in Israel's collective chronology are the frequent wars and military operations,3 from which internal developments cannot be detached. Thus, matters of security and foreign policy have come to play a decisive role in the collective consciousness, joining individual concerns to the fate of the state. As a result, none of the three internal social divisions reviewed herein developed "normally" since 1948, because they became entangled in the web of Israel's external affairs. This fact has had a very important impact on the evolution of Israeli democracy, particularly after 1967. A second factor influencing Israel's democracy is the process of economic development. By any set of indicators, Israel's development in the first two decades of statehood was very rapid. The comparison between aggregate economic and social indicators for the periods 1950-68 and 1968-85 reveals a number of interesting findings.4 First, within a very short period, Israel was transformed from a relatively under-developed society into a modern urban one. During these four decades, the percentage of the civilian labor force engaged in agriculture dropped from 18 percent to 5 percent, which was much more rapid than in other modernized societies. Second, the most dramatic changes occurred in the early decades. For example, in the first period there was a faster positive rate of change than in the second period with regard to population increase, economic growth, reduction in the balance of payments deficit, industrial and agricultural productivity and in the standard of living. From 1950-67 the average annual increase in per capita gross national product (GNP) was about 8 percent, compared with only 2.8 percent from 196885, with zero growth in the last five of those years. Although by the mid-1960s the average urban Israeli family lagged behind comparable European families in housing conditions, ownership of appliances, daily food consumption per capita and in the general level of private consumption, the society was clearly pushing ahead. A new economic plan had been introduced in 1962 and, in the jargon of those days, policymakers referred to the Israeli economy as being on the verge of takeoff. This did not take place immediately or without difficulty. In 1966-67 Israel's economy entered into a very severe recession, which ended only because of the Six Day War in June 1967. All economic indicators reveal a great leap forward from 1967 to 1973. In terms of per capita GNP, the five-year period after 1967 was the best in Israel's history, rising at an annual average rate of 8.5 percent, in sharp contrast with both the preceding and following years. Private consumption rose at an annual rate of 12 percent; immigration increased by a quarter of a million within five years; and there was a concurrent expansion in state expenditures on education,

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health, housing, welfare and community services. However, military expenditures did not decrease, remaining close to the peak level of 1967 and increasing again after the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Economic development not only slowed down after 1973 but the overall trend was reversed and the country encountered low and even negative rates of growth. Thus, between 1973 and 1985 the average annual change in per capita GNP was just above zero. This was a period of economic stagnation, accompanied toward the end by hyper-inflation, social unrest and internal friction. Nevertheless, Israel in the mid-1980s has joined the group of modern, developed, even post-industrialized, societies. Of course, not everybody in Israel shares this wealth and some groups have become relatively more impoverished. But the figures for the society as a whole are impressive, indeed. First, the composition of Israeli society has changed. Israel is no longer a society of first-generation immigrants—in 1985, 60 percent of all Jews and 94 percent of those aged one to nineteen years were born in Israel. Furthermore, there has been a qualitative change in the standard of living over the last two decades. The average urban family of the 1960s has changed its profile completely and in the mid-1980s it closely resembles equivalent families in other advanced Western countries. Post-industrial features are present, most notably in the composition of the labor force, the dominance of the service sector of the economy, the degree of formal education of the population and in technological progress, including the development of a military-industrial complex.5 One may also point to the increase in leisure activities and the significance of the electronic mass media as well as to societal stresses associated with rapid socioeconomic change and modernization. Two aspects of these developments are of particular relevance to the relationship between social divisions, politics and democracy. First, the security burden continued to weigh heavily on Israeli society throughout the forty-year period. Despite the peace treaty with Egypt and Israel's relative military strength, a subjective sense of threat is acutely felt. Second, Israel's failure to maintain steady and rapid economic development in the last two decades has caused people to doubt that the country is moving in a positive direction. An annual rate of inflation of 400 percent (in 1984) and an extremely unstable economy exacerbated internal social divisions and left their mark on people's confidence in the government's capacity to manage the country. Let us now turn to the main problems that have preoccupied Israel since 1948. None of them were new, but they were recast in different form within the new state. Moreover, each had the capacity to threaten the stability of the recently established democratic political system. 1. The division between observant and non-observant Jews, the "religious" and the "secular," surfaced at the First Zionist Congress in 1897. After 1948 the Zionist movement in Israel and abroad was forced to confront the question that it had attempted to avoid for nearly fifty years: Now that there was a state, would it also be a "Jewish state"? This posed an acute dilemma: How could a democratic political system, particularly a new one, accommodate expectations that, if fully pursued, would become entirely contradictory? Is politics the suitable vehicle for finding a way of meeting


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the needs (at least the most important ones) of both the observant and nonobservant? 2. Israel is a community of immigrants. The tension arising from the diverse countries of origin and the friction between veterans and newcomers was acute long before 1948. However, within a year or two, aliyah became the major concern of the young state, both in terms of numbers—in 1949 alone there were a quarter of a million new immigrants—and in terms of composition—in the early years of the state the number of Asian-African immigrants surpassed the number of European-American immigrants. The problem this division posed for Israeli democracy was similar in certain respects to that of other imigrant societies: how to ensure a humane process of absorption. Yet, in Israel there were some additional, unique features. The state was established for Jews who had to, or wished to, come. Hence their acceptance and successful absorption was an absolute requirement. Although the state was established by a predominantly Western Zionist movement, the acceptance of nonWestern immigrants as social and cultural equals would be proof that the Jews were one nation. Finally, because the pre-state Jewish community was based on a voluntary democracy, equal rights and opportunities for newcomers was an important test for the state's level of democracy. 3. The Jews established a state, but 160,000 Arabs (14 percent of the total population) lived within its borders. How would the Jews treat the non-Jews living in their midst and under their rule? Ideological differences divided the Yishuv into a multiplicity of political camps, parties and institutions. The question in 1948 and thereafter was whether it would be possible to forge an agreement, a modicum of consensus on basic issues, to enable the state to survive and the political system to function and remain democratic. In what follows we shall examine the impact of these three divisions on the democratic political system throughout the entire forty-year period.

RELIGION IN A JEWISH STATE The status quo arrangement on religious matters that existed during the Yishuv period evolved under the authority of the British Mandate. With the establishment of the state, the religious camp found itself confronted with a formidable dilemma. The government itself, the source of power, had become Jewish and could impose religious law on the state. No longer was there a foreign authority, of which it could be said with a sigh, "The law of the land is binding." No longer was it necessary to struggle for the religious autonomy of the Jewish community. Instead, there existed a sovereign Jewish state that appointed ministers and judges, even kashrut supervisors. The extremists among the ultra-Orthodox solved this dilemma by not "recognizing" the state—and even requested the UN secretary-general to provide them with passports, certifying that they were residents of the "international city" of Jerusalem. The less extreme such as those affiliated with Agudat Israel and Poalei Agudat Israel and, especially, the religious Zionists found themselves in conflict with the

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"secular" government. The question, essentially one of principle and beliefs, was, however, soon expressed in concrete terms: in controversies over the constitution, the education of the children of the new immigrants, Sabbath observance and the conscription of religious girls into the army. The United Religious Front (the joint list of four religious parties) won sixteen seats in the first Knesset elections and entered the government coalition headed by Mapai, which opposed religious coercion and sought to maintain the status quo agreement on religious matters. Yet, conflict over religious matters punctuated the early years of the state. The first government fell as a result of a dispute over religious education, signaling the onset of a series of coalition crises that revolved around religious affairs. A perusal of the newspapers of the first two years of statehood gives the impression that the armistice agreements with the Arab countries were secondary to these disputes. They were not, but there was also a very tangible danger that a Kulturkampf might erupt. Minor controversies quickly reached boiling point: for example, the question of what hour the movie houses in Jerusalem should open on Saturday nights led to violent scuffles in the streets and threatened to break up the coalition. The United Religious Front often opted for the most extreme position and provoked strong resentment among the non-observant, leading early in 1951 to the establishment of a League for the Prevention of Religious Coercion that drew considerable support. Nevertheless, in hindsight, it is clear that these disputes generally ended in either short- or long-term compromise. The debate over the constitution ended with a decision gradually to adopt a series of Basic Laws rather than one document, thus circumventing the explosive issue of whether the laws should be based on halakhah. In 1953 a parallel judicial system of rabbinical courts was established to deal with matters of personal status. The crisis over education in the immigrant camps involved the fundamental question of control over the education of the children of religious and traditional immigrants. Here, too, the solution was pragmatic: to avoid direct confrontation over the issue of the curriculum in the schools. The option of different educational streams was made available according to a party key. In 1953, after long negotiations, this political arrangement was formalized in a law that still exists; it established three separate school systems: the state (secular); the statereligious and the independent (ultra-Orthodox). Finally, tenuous political compromises were made with regard to public observance of the Sabbath and religious dietary laws and to the obligation of religious girls to undergo military training. Obviously, the non-religious parties had the numbers to impose a secular framework of government or even the separation of religion and state. Mapai's reluctance to do so reflected the fact that most Jews in Israel did not support such drastic measures, and its stand gave clear expression to the widespread ambivalence over the role of religion in the state of the Jews. Religious parties were included in coalitions partly for reasons of political expedience and partly to involve them in the political system and to prevent them from separating themselves totally. The many compromises expressed the desire to avoid direct confrontation; but no real bridge between the two groups was created, and stable and accepted demarcation lines were not established between the demands of the observant and the lifestyles of the non-observant. Consequently, despite the various agreements, conflict erupted time and time again. Nevertheless, the fact that a Kulturkampf did not break out was a


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triumph for the politics of accommodation and compromise and a major achievement for the young democracy. In the mid-1960s the religious status quo agreement remained in effect with the religious parties as its guardians. Despite intermittent disputes over religious issues that caused major government crises, the religious parties continued to participate in the cabinet; they were not deeply involved in the major political upheavals of that period, as they concentrated mainly on religious matters. At that time, most nonultra-Orthodox observant Jews were integrated into Israeli society and politics, and they organized successfulb' to advance their cause. The cleavage between the observant and the non-observant was maintained in separate schools, youth movements, sports clubs, kibbutzim, political parties and residential neighborhoods. The operation of the status quo agreement meant, in effect, a series of religious, economic and political concessions by the non-observant majority. From the early 1960s onward, the younger generation of the National Religious Party (NRP) became increasingly dissatisfied as the party, Mapai's permanent partner in government, became bogged down in coalition politics. Many of them felt that the religious camp had remained somewhat peripheral and certainly had not taken a leading role in the Zionist struggle—in the underground movements, illegal immigration, the war of Independence, the consolidation of statehood—and thus had not been in the mainstream of Israeli society. An opposition of young religious leaders that emerged might have ended up merely as another group within the faction-ridden NRP had it not been for the Six Day War, which presented a rare coincidence of historical and mythical elements: a miraculous military victory, holy places, a new frontier and the new borders of a Greater Israel. This change within the religious camp began in 1967, but after the Yom Kippur War it became even more significant. The war that took Israel by surprise was perceived as a heavenly omen and led to the creation of Gush Emunim with its emphasis on "redemptionist Zionism"—politics mixed with messianism. As a result the religious camp that existed before 1967 no longer exists. Religion has become intricately involved with the political future of the state, and in this respect the religious groups have become more integrated into Israeli society. Viewed historically, the Six Day War transformed the relationship between observant and non-observant Jews. First, the religious parties, particularly the NRP, were the key factor in the 1977 change of government, and they enabled the Likud to stay in power for over a decade. Second, in the 1980s religion has more direct influence on Israeli society and politics than ever before, the most extreme example being the religious "underground" (some of whose members killed innocent Arabs in the West Bank in reprisal for Arab terrorism). Politically, however, the religious parties have gained power in recent years, manifested less in the number of their Knesset members than in their bargaining power in the government coalition. The three religious parties—the NRP and the two Aguda parties—had their greatest electoral success in the early 1960s when they won about 15 percent of the vote. But together with Tami in 1981 and the addition of Shas in 1984 they won only 11 to 12 percent, a loss of one-fifth of their net political power in the Knesset, although they did recoup this in 1988. Nevertheless, it is commonly believed in Israel that religion was weak in the 1960s, but it is now very strong. The religious parties' increased bargaining power has not yet

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resulted in new laws related to religion, but rather in greater financial support for religious institutions. There is no evidence, however, of more widespread religious observance. This paradox indicates the profound change that has taken place in the role of religion in Israel over the last twenty years. It has two manifestations: the increased strength and prominence of non-Zionist Orthodoxy and the new messianist-nationalist interpretation of the State of Israel prevalent in certain religious Zionist circles. What are the implications of these developments for Israeli democracy? The initial solution to the cleavage between the non-observant and the Orthodox was politics; more precisely, politics as a vehicle for reaching accommodation and compromise. In the early years of the state the struggle and conflicts arose mainly because of apprehension among Orthodox Jews about the secular policies and practices of the Jewish state. This included the bitter and prolonged struggle over the question of "Who is a Jew?" in the late 1950s. At that time, the Orthodox refused to allow the state to answer that question. Nonetheless, the various problems that erupted from time to time were amenable to political arrangements. Such arrangements broke down after 1967 when the main religious Zionist party (NRP) turned its attention to broader national questions—matters that were previously regarded as non-religious affairs. Consequently, it has ceased gradually to play the role of mediator between the state and the majority of the observant community. The response of the ultra-Orthodox was immediate—feeling directly threatened, they became more extreme, and the religious struggle was moved back onto the streets, that is, to the level of intercommunal strife. The central point for our discussion is that these developments exposed the more strictly religious matters, as previously defined, to the non-political arena. Previous political arrangements ceased to function because they were not formulated to deal with matters that were critical for the majority of the non-observant as well as for the observant. The mixing of religion with the issue of settlements in the territories is a good example; so, too, is the campaign to turn Israel into a "Jewish democracy," in which traditional Jewish values would come before the general requirements of democracy. No democracy can resolve the fundamentally contradictory expectations of both the observant and non-observant. At this stage of Israel's development, it seems as if the only successful way to cope with this rift is through politics, or more precisely through the negotiation of binding agreements among the leaders of the contending groups. This has occurred less in recent years as coalition agreements have lost their binding power. Left unresolved these problems may pose a real threat of internal disintegration. THE ETHNIC CLEAVAGE Making Israel the homeland of the Jews was the motivation for the establishment of the state—and there was no controversy on this matter in the Zionist movement or in the new state. The massive immigration of the early years of the state, however, brought in two groups of immigrants whose problems of absorption were especially difficult. The first group consisted mainly of immigrants from the displaced person (DP) camps in Europe, the survivors of the concentration camps. Tom Segev has


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documented their problems of adaptation as well as the ambivalent attitudes toward these refugees in Israel.6 Our concern here, however, is with the second group—the Oriental Jews (immigrants from Asia and Africa) who arrived just after the European DPs.7 By the time the immigration of Yemenite Jews began at the end of 1949, for example, most of the abandoned Arab property had already been distributed, as were the buildings in the temporary immigrant camps and in abandoned British army camps. But the absorption difficulties of Oriental Jews went much deeper than mere late arrival. One early manifestation was the demand to slow down the rate of aliyah, which stemmed from the precarious economic situation, but was also due, in part, to the alleged "low quality of the human material'' arriving from Africa and Asia. Whereas the Western immigrants found in Israel a veteran population of similar background (including relatives) and in many cases a common language, the Oriental Jewish immigrants encountered a different, strange and, at times, hostile community. By the time the Orientals arrived, the Westerners were already the predominant social and political element in the country, and it is in this confrontation—between the veteran elites and the Oriental Jewish immigrants, who were not among the founders of Israel, had not taken part in the struggle for independence and thus were not represented in those elites—that ethnic conflict originated. Two additional factors exacerbated ethnic divisions in Israel from the outset. First, the cultural heritage of many Oriental Jews was influenced by societies that now represented the national enemy and was, therefore, held in contempt by many veteran Israelis. This also had practical consequences: whereas foreign-language newspapers and broadcasts served various immigrant groups, those in Arabic were directed at the Israeli Arabs and the neighboring countries and thus could not simultaneously meet the needs of Arabic-speaking Jewish immigrants. As a result, their mother tongue was the only one not recognized for these purposes in Israel, and it took many years before second-generation Oriental immigrants openly espoused their Arabic and North African heritages. Second, there existed a socioeconomic gap between most Oriental Jewish immigrants and most veterans—and even most Western immigrants—particularly in average levels of education. Oriental Jewish immigrants were thrown into a nonexistent melting pot, theoretically aimed at the "fusion of the exiles." The aspiration for integration was sincere—but in fact, it demanded that the Orientals quickly and totally adopt the Ashkenazi (Western) way of life. Thus, paternalistic goals of progress and integration planted the seeds of a division that was nourished by unrealistic expectations. The socialization of the Oriental Jewish immigrants in those early years created a relationship of dependence. They learned to respond to the demands and the control of the politicians in return for work, housing, health services and other benefits. Both Oriental and Western immigrants accepted the idea of national integration and the desirability of building a new Israeli-Jewish society. Nevertheless, whose Jewish tradition, religious customs and even Hebrew accent would dominate the new national identity remained an open question. Actual conflict was preceded by the attempts of some Oriental Jews to take the great leap forward, but the open rift was reflected in outbreaks of violence such as the Wadi Salib events in 1959s and the actions of the Israeli Black Panthers in the early 1970s.

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The political aspect of these issues was not particularly prominent at first because the Oriental Jews did not express a different ideology or a competing concept of national identity, but rather their aspirations for economic and social equality. Indeed, only in the 1970s and 1980s, when the second and third generation of these immigrants reached maturity, were the political aspects of the ethnic schism fully revealed. The ratio between the Oriental and Western Jews evened out in the early 1960s, and by 1965 the former became a majority.9 Yet, even then the conflict was still in a pre-political stage. The socioeconomic gap remained considerable and, politically, Orientals were both powerless and under-represented in all national institutions and elite positions. Politically there was no ethnic problem in Israel because even among Oriental Jews there was no legitimation for a separate political consciousness: witness the consistent failure of ethnic lists that sought election to the Knesset. To be sure, the major parties competed for the votes of Oriental groups and included a few of their representatives in their lists; but the problem was regarded as an issue for social and educational policies to resolve. Unlike the religious cleavage, the ethnic cleavage did not enter into coalition agreements or other party arrangements. A change began to take place in the 1960s. Oriental Jewish leaders sprang up all over the country in local communities and organizations, local authorities, local and regional workers' committees and in the Histadrut. The ethnic problem was already bubbling in the 1960s as various Oriental groups began to push more strongly for equality. In retrospect, the major question was the expression that this struggle would take. Very important changes occurred in the role of the ethnic division in Israeli politics in the late 1970s, brought about mainly by the already native generation of Oriental Jews, numbering close to 1 million people in 1985. Although the products of the Israeli school system, with improved educational achievements, they still lagged behind Western Jews in this regard, and in the case of university education the gap has continued to widen in the 1980s.10 So, too, with skilled occupations that require intensive training: Oriental Jews have advanced, but their Western counterparts have done so more rapidly.11 On the other hand, a small elite of Israeli-born Oriental Jews has succeeded in Israeli society in terms of education and occupation, whereas some others have advanced economically and become wealthy. Finally, even though we do not have precise figures on income distribution, the gap within the Oriental community seems to have increased significantly and faster than the gap between Israeli-born Oriental and Western Jews. The political revolt of Oriental Jewish voters that began earlier and finally brought the Likud into power in 1977 consisted of a vote for an established party (Herat), with an Ashkenazi (Western) leader and with middle-class voters (of the Liberal party) as its electoral partners. Their consistent and clear rejection of a more radical, perhaps even alienated, ethnic alternative such as the Black Panthers suggests that Oriental Jewish voters aspired to become equal partners in Israeli society. That many felt that they had not succeeded was highlighted by the explosive ethnic tensions of the 1981 elections, which were only kept under control with some difficulty. Moreover, the many Oriental Jews among the 25,097 voters who elected Meir Kahane to the Knesset in 198412 seemed yet another manifestation of an


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extreme sense of powerlessness. How should these developments be characterized? Is this an integration process, a power struggle, or both, and is the prognosis for solving the ethnic problem good in the long term?13 The Israeli political system dominated by Mapai and the labor movement was responsible for raising the political consciousness of the new immigrants, particularly those of Oriental origin. Within one generation their offspring were sufficiently autonomous to decide that they no longer wanted Labour in government and turned to the Likud instead. The strengthened Likud is both a result and a cause of this change. It grew because it captured the support of those who felt that they were outsiders in Israeli society, and this contributed a great deal to the sense of belonging and the political standing of the Oriental community, both subjectively and objectively. This political revolution is probably the most significant response to the ethnic gap. Once Israelis of Oriental origin fortify their equal position in the political elite, there is a good chance that they will gain greater equality in other elites. The upward mobility of the Oriental Jews is the most important social change in Israel in the last twenty years. However, it coincided with the revival of religious fundamentalism and the upsurge of chauvinistic nationalism led by Western Jews. Whether advocated in terms of Jewish religion or nationalism (or both), feelings against Arabs reached an unprecedented level of antagonism. In this sense the development of democratic pluralism in Israel created a situation in which the advancement of one (Jewish) group could be at the expense of another (Arab) group. Within the Jewish community there is room for some optimism with regard to the future of the ethnic conflict. From a situation of complete dependence in the 1950s, Oriental Jews began to move upward in the 1960s and accomplished a political upheaval in the late 1970s. Despite considerable tension and friction, generally speaking the process has taken place within the rules of the democratic game. Most Orientals were not alienated and were not even anti-establishment per se. Rather, they were pro-establishment insofar as they aspired to belong to it; later they sought to build up an alternative establishment headed by the Likud. Once the ethnic conflict entered the front door of Israeli politics, the result was both more friction and the greater likelihood of a solution. The long-term impact of the ethnic division on Israeli democracy, therefore, depends mainly on the content and pace of the process through which equality is achieved. Political power could be the vehicle for producing equality, but access to other elites through higher levels of education and employment is necessary to make it permanent. Conversely, a high overlap between the ethnic division and other major cleavages could threaten Israeli democracy. ARABS IN THE STATE OF ISRAEL The lines dividing Jews from Arabs in Israel almost completely split them into two communities separated in terms of religion, culture, language and residence—not to speak of the repercussions of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Israeli political system neither sought to integrate the Arabs into the Jewish society nor to subject them to a melting pot policy. From the government's view-

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point, the Arab problem after the War of Independence was how to maintain their loyalty as citizens and their observance of the law. In 1949 practical problems naturally came first: the disposition of seized property, the prevention of infiltration and the safeguarding of security. The fundamental question, however, was defined in 1950 by Pinhas Lavon, then minister of agriculture, in terms of Zionist ideals and Jewish ethics, "For the first time we shall face the experience of living with a minority and of providing an example, and proof, of how Jews can live with a minority."14 Politically the main dispute was between the Mapai-led government on the one side and the Mapam and Maki (Israeli Communist party) opposition on the other. The government restricted Arab ownership of abandoned property (even if its owners had returned to Israel), expropriated land for public purposes and limited the freedom of movement of Arab citizens. The regions where Arabs lived were administered by a military rule based on the Mandatory Emergency Defence Regulations. This policy was attacked from the left, but also by the Herut and general Zionist parties on the right, who opposed the use of emergency powers inherited from the Mandate and accused the government of using the military administration and the powers of the Custodian of Enemy Property to the advantage of Mapai. The non-Jewish communities were granted religious, cultural and educational autonomy. As citizens, the Arabs had equal rights from the outset and participated in the first Knesset elections held in January 1949, even before the end of the War of Independence. In the early years their average turnout was over 80 percent, slightly higher than that of the Jews. Most of the Arab votes (over 60 percent) went to Arab lists affiliated to Mapai or to Mapai itself and about 20 percent to the Communist party. Clearly, the government and the Jewish parties controlled the Arab citizens by effective use of the traditional social structure, whereby contact with the authorities was carried out mainly through the village and clan leaders. In retrospect it is evident that these policies were not a particularly contentious issue among the Jews. In the context of all the country's other problems, the internal Arab question was regarded as marginal, on the one hand, and adequately dealt with by military rule and other bureaucratic means, on the other. By the 1960s a sizable proportion of Israeli Arabs had become economically mobile, benefiting from the general economic development and rise in the standard of living. Arabs did not advance at the same rate as the Jews, but they developed a pragmatic approach to furthering their interests, which contained an element of recognition of, and compliance with, the state and its political system. This trend was enhanced by various measures of liberalization—the abolition of military rule in 1966 and the entry of about forty-thousand Arabs into the Histadrut in the years 1960-65. Yet, politically little changed. To have permitted independent Arab political organization would have immediately raised sensitive security issues as well as questions about state land confiscations. There was, therefore, a policy of partial accommodation toward Israeli Arabs: no independent Arab party was actually allowed—through a combination of bureaucratic, security and legal means—but there were regularly seven or eight Arab (including Druse) members of the Knesset belonging to Jewish parties or lists affiliated to them.


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The most significant transformation in the status of Israeli Arabs occurred with the Israeli takeover of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967; this placed the internal division of Israeli society more directly in the broader context of the ArabIsraeli conflict. Of the approximately 5.5 million people today in the area west of the Jordan River, about 2 million are Arabs. The overall ratio of less than 2 Jews for every 1 Arab creates a clear situation of binationality.15 Within the State of Israel, however, there are no signs of this duality (with the exception, perhaps, of Arabic as the second official language). Israel is fundamentally a Jewish state, its symbols are Jewish and its national goals Zionist. These are not acceptable to the Arab citizens, precluding them from sharing in either the state's national ethos or—just as significant—in the equal distribution of available state resources. Duality is further muted by Arab inability to fully utilize their political power; the proportion of Arab Knesset members, for instance, has never reflected their percentage of the voting population. At one level the basic situation of the Israeli Arabs—a minority within a state that strives to be Jewish—was not changed by the 1967 War. But at another level the question of the future of the occupied territories has made Israeli Arabs the litmus test of Israeli democracy. In this regard, two conflicting political phenomena have developed. First, a new generation of Israeli-Arab leaders emerged who began to fight for their rights within the democratic rules of the game. They joined existing parties, used their power as local representatives and banded together in organizations to maximize their political strength (e.g., Committee of Arab Heads of Local Authorities). Second, some extremists within the Jewish community advocate the expulsion of Arabs from Israel, whereas others euphemistically refer to a Jewish or Zionist democracy. Sentiments not dissimilar seem to have been involved in the 1985 Knesset decision to amend the Basic Law: The Knesset to require allegiance from political parties to Israel "as the state of the Jewish People." Such insensitive usage of the law for declarative purposes attests not only to lack of tolerance toward a minority but even more to a considerable sense of insecurity among Jews. More concretely, the cabinet majority decision of May 17, 1987, to require Arab students to pay higher university tuition fees by granting army veterans reductions would have been a step toward making the Arab students second-class citizens— and this was widely decried as leading to apartheid. The idea was dropped owing to public and political opposition but damage was done by the encouragement given to extremist positions. Thus, we find two opposing trends. The Jewish community, over-extended by twenty years of occupation and weary from the long conflict with the neighboring Arab states, shows signs of closure and insecurity. The Israeli-Arab community, on the other hand, expresses more confidence in Israel's future and their role as Israeli, non-Jewish citizens within it. The most revealing fact in this connection is, as Smooha points out, the existence of a majority among Israeli Arabs for both (1) Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state and (2) the desire to seek solutions to their problems within Israel.16 The issue of Arabs in a Jewish state has also changed: from the early years when

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it was defined strictly in security terms; through the increased tolerance, liberalization and economic development in the mid-1960s; to the political activism of the Arabs and the lack of confidence (accompanied by some racist manifestations) among the Jews in the 1980s. The Arab minority has not posed a threat to Israeli democracy, but the possibility that it will be discriminated against remains a critical test of the viability of democratic values in Israel. All three internal divisions serve as indicators of both the political system's steering ability and its democratic nature. The general conclusion must be tentative: the political system has coped and democracy has survived thus far. In all three cases, however, it has proved much more difficult to ensure this result in the last twenty years than previously. Clearly, the political mechanisms that had once proved capable of handling such sensitive divisions no longer function effectively: why this is so is the subject of the following discussion.

THE POLITICS OF ACCOMMODATION The original foundations of Israeli democracy were quite similar to what Lijphart calls the consociational type of democracy,17 the four major characteristics of which are: the proportional principle, mutual veto rights, a high degree of autonomy and grand coalitions. A proportional system of representation, of appointment to public positions and of allocation of public funds were all present in Israel. Compared with other countries, the proportional principle was most rigidly applied to the electoral system. Veto rights granted to the religious camp were manifested in the lack of a written constitution and, more generally, in the special majority required for changing certain laws such as that determining the electoral system. Each camp enjoyed a high degree of autonomy in conducting its own internal affairs except in the areas of defense and foreign affairs, which were generally removed from the domestic political process and elevated to a higher level of national politics. Governments were able to rule despite the cleavages because of grand coalitions of political leaders, although Lijphart himself maintains that this characteristic was only partially applicable to Israel. (This is also one reason why Gutmann classifies Israel's political system as semi-consociational.")18 The evidence suggests that generally the cabinet was not based on a grand coalition of all the major parties, in fact, the first time was from 1967 to 1970. Yet, the grand coalition principle was applied in the political system as a whole, incorporating many institutions, notably the Jewish Agency, the Zionist Organization and, to some extent, the Histadrut. The main purpose of the grand coalition was to bring about compromise at the elite level and to maintain the politics of accommodation—both of which have always been highly refined in Israel's political system. These consociational methods were an integral part of domestic politics during the Yishuv and the early state period, politics based on a rather permanent coalition among parties and the use of a party key to maintain alliances among competing


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elites. The methods also assisted the voluntary pre-state political system to overcome internal divisions and to maintain a high level of steering capacity. Carried over into the state period they enabled the political system to cope with the three social divisions analyzed earlier. The religious groups were the main beneficiary of these arrangements. The proportional system allowed them to retain approximately 13 percent in all centers of power. They enjoyed effective veto power on core religious issues, thus the political struggle was over questions on the margins of the status quo. The religious camp enjoyed a high degree of autonomous control over such institutions as the chief rabbinate, the ministry of religious affairs and the local religious councils. The inclusion of the religious parties, particularly the NRP, was the main reason why government coalitions in Israel were usually not "minimum winning coalitions."19 The NRP participated in nearly all government coalitions between 1948 and 1967, and for less than half this time it was in the position of a balancing partner without which the coalition would collapse. Table 1 shows how the consociational arrangement was applied with regard to the coalition relationship with the religious camp until 1967. The United Religious Front in 1949-52 and the NRP in 1961-65 enjoyed a balancing status. These were periods of crisis (the establishment of the state and the Lavon Affair of the 1960s), and on both occasions Mapai had particular difficulties in finding willing coalition partners. But generally they were full partners in a grand coalition arrangement. This mode of conducting politics proved very effective against the entry of new groups into the Israeli political elite. It was manifested in the ability to delay the entrance of Oriental Jews into the centers of power and to prevent them from becoming a distinctive factor in Israeli politics. Of course, in the early years of the state, most of the Oriental Jewish immigrants lacked the political knowledge and skills needed for participation and there was also a prevailing consensus against ethnicity ('adatiut) as the basis of political organization. Yet, in the late 1950s some groups of immigrants were ready to try, and in theory the proportional system of election should have enabled them to do so. In 1961, for instance, about ten thousand votes provided one Knesset seat, and this should have been within the reach of certain immigrant communities. Despite various attempts, no ethnic list was elected to the Knesset in those years.20 To be sure, there were Oriental lists in the first and second Knesset, but these had been organized by veteran Orientals in Israel since before 1948. Thus, the opportunities provided by the proportional system notwithstanding, the Oriental community was prevented from becoming a factor in national politics in those years by the other features of the Israeli consociational democracy, especially the rather rigid division into political camps and the grand coalition for resource distribution. Orientals did, however, enjoy greater success in local government and sub-national institutions. The same applies even more forcefully to the Israeli Arabs. As we pointed out above, Arab citizens in Israel participated in the elections, but they did not have their own political organizations or achieve representation in the Knesset commen-

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Itzhak Galnoor Table 1. Government Coalitions, 1949-67

Knesset

Government Coalitions

Years

Number of MKs in Coalition

Number of Religious MKs in Coalition

Religious Parties in Coalition

Religious Balancing Position

I

1-2 3

1949-51 1951-52

73 65

16 15

URF NRP, AI, PAI

Yes Yes

II

4, 5 6

1952-55 1955-55

84 63

10 10

NRP NRP

No Yes

III

7, 8

1955-59

80

11

NRP

No

IV

9

1959-61

86

12

NRP

No

V

10-12

1961-65

68

14

NRP, PAI

Yes

VI

13

1966-67

75

13

NRP, PAI

No

Key: URF—United Religious Front; NRP—National Religious Party; AI—Agudat Israel; PAI—Poalei Agudat Israel

surate with their proportion of the voting population. Practically speaking, Arabs were complete outsiders to the internal political arrangements of Israeli democracy, contact with them being maintained through the military, the Security Services, the bureaucracy, separate Arabic newspapers and radio programs and through Arab parties affiliated to Jewish parties. The main feature and source of strength of the Israeli political system from the pre-state period until the mid-1960s was reliance on the power of organizations and institutions rather than on the direct support of the voters. Under these conditions the political parties were the major contributors to stability and continuity and to the steering capacity of the government,21 which, in turn, rested on a number of additional features of the pre-1967 era.22 There was, first of all, a considerable degree of consensus regarding the Jewish state as the instrument for attaining Zionist objectives. On this fundamental plane Israel's Jewish political culture was not fragmented and the divisions already described were accommodated. This was the basis for the politics of coalition and compromise. Second, the political system continued to operate along the lines of the pre-state division into three political camps. The general distribution of votes between the labor camp, the civic camp (General and Revisionist Zionism) and the religious camp was more or less perpetuated with Mapai as the dominant power. Third, there was also a high degree of political centralization in Israeli society. The space between the central government and society was densely occupied by numerous bodies and secondary centers, but these were not independent pressure groups or voluntary organizations. The most prominent feature of these bodies was that they were affiliated, in one way or another, with central institutions: the government, the Histadrut, the Jewish Agency and, of course, the political parties. Fourth, Israel had a strong executive that could rely on party discipline and on a centralized and loyal civil service. Toward the mid-1960s, however, shifts in the relative


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strength of the various government bodies began to weaken the power of the executive. Fifth, the judiciary was independent and enjoyed a high degree of respect, remaining, by and large, outside party politics. At that time the judiciary deliberately refrained from becoming enmeshed in the political process, as evidenced by the reluctance of the Supreme Court to determine the legality of legislation. Israel made a clear distinction between processes requiring political and administrative decisions and those entrusted to the judgment of the courts, thereby leaving the political arena almost entirely to the politicians. Finally, Israel's political system was rather closed, with political participation confined to elections and membership in parties and their various affiliated organizations. There was relatively little autonomous political activity of individuals and groups, particularly of non-established groups such as new immigrants, Oriental Jews or Israeli Arabs. In sum, despite its newness, the Israeli state reached a relatively high level of political development early on. Agreement on goals and procedures was sufficient for the system to function; there was only one legitimate political center and there were recognized institutions. The political system proved its steering capacity and the government demonstrated its ability to cope with potential breakdowns and to reach binding decisions with little use of coercion. Was it democratic? In a democracy citizens have an impact on government policy through access to resources and through participation. In those very general terms, Israel was democratic and that would have been the prevalent feeling among most Israeli citizens in the mid-1960s. Yet, Israel was an organized consociational democracy with access restricted by a powerful network of parties and affiliated bodies. Accordingly, citizen participation was more of the responsive type—they voted, listened attentively to the news and complained to public officials. But their role as autonomous political agents was rather limited. Among the three groups discussed—observant Jews, Oriental Jews and Israeli Arabs—access was highly regulated and participation highly predictable. The observant had their political camp and were, accordingly, full partners in the politics of accommodation. Oriental Jews and Israeli Arabs were not organized (and could not organize); consequently, they were mainly on the receiving end of political decisions and government policies. THE POLITICS OF INSTABILITY Change was already evident in the early 1960s. These years brought a number of critical challenges to Israeli society and politics beginning with the Lavon Affair—a major political crisis that came to light in 1960 and continued intermittently until the 1965 general elections.23 Within a relatively short period Israel faced a number of crucial changes. When Ben-Gurion resigned as prime minister in 1963, the country lost the leadership of the man who had been at the helm for a very long period. And it faced both a subsequent split in Mapai, which led to the establishment in 1965 of a new party, Rafi, headed by Ben-Gurion, and the formation of Mapai's alignment

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with Ahdut Ha'avodah. This was followed by the economic recession of 1966-67, which was marked by high unemployment, particularly among Oriental Jews in the development towns. This was a period of considerable social unrest as evidenced by an unprecedented number of strikes, most of which were directed against the government and the Histadrut.24 The Lavon Affair epitomized the crisis of the political system. For the first time since Israel's establishment, there was a widespread feeling that not only was the political system not functioning well but that the country was not going anywhere. This subjective feeling of breakdown was intensified during the economic crisis and became a real fear for survival in May 1967. The Six Day War was preceded by a traumatic waiting period that generated public confusion, lack of confidence in the political leadership and even some manifestations of military insubordination. Levi Eshkol was forced to resign as defense minister, and for the first time Herut was included as a partner in a new National Unity cabinet. Although the war of 1967 caught Israeli society by surprise, the country entered it politically united. By the seventh day, however, all the internal divisions that had been either frozen or accommodated were quickly reopened and new ones were added. The years 1967-73 were characterized by an atmosphere of limitlessness. Some leaders spoke of Israel as a "world military power," others spoke of the "economic Switzerland of the Middle East."25 Massive economic support from the U.S. government and from world Jewry, the arrival of Jewish imigrants from the USSR and the availability of cheap Arab labor from the occupied territories—all contributed to an aura of invincibility and visions of a miraculous future for Israel. The reconstruction of the old political system under the authoritative leadership of Golda Meir were all part of the same phenomenon. Even the heavy casualties suffered during the War of Attrition (1969-70) did not change this mood. Against this background it is easy to understand the traumatic effect of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. It again shattered the basic faith of most Israelis that their leaders knew what they were doing. This phenomenon has had long-term repercussions for the general capacity of governments to rule in Israel. Once the basic premise that leaders can be trusted on the most critical collective good (i.e., survival) was shaken, government steering capacity was impaired in other fields as well. The immediate result was an unprecedented event in Israel's politics: public pressure caused the resignation of Prime Minister Meir and her cabinet in 1974. There was a genuine desire to begin everything anew. Viewed from this perspective, the 1967 and 1973 wars and the years between constitute the most critical period in Israel's development since independence, and they had a marked impact on the way in which politics was subsequently conducted. We can begin by saying, simply, that the politics of accommodation of the pre-1967 era disappeared; and, more generally, by saying that Israel is no longer the consociational democracy that it was with regard to the three major internal social divisions we have discussed. First, the religious camp of the pre-1967 era underwent a metamorphosis. The NRP, as we noted, became involved in other aspects of Israel's political life and suffered electorally. The ultra-Orthodox parties became more militant and at the same time more willing to take part in Israeli secular politics. By the 1984 elections


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the religious camp was split into five parties. New combinations developed: religion and nationalism, religion and (Oriental) ethnic affiliation, politics and ultraOrthodoxy. The religious Zionism of the old NRP lost its appeal to the public under the party's new Israeli-born young leadership. The general impression in Israel of increasing religious strength has not yet been substantiated on election day; in 1984 the Orthodox parties did not increase their overall representation in the Knesset (although, as noted, they did manage to do so in 1988).26 However, the religious parties were very influential in the National Unity Government established in 1984 because of the electoral stalemate between the two major parties. Is it necessarily a position of strength in the long run? Once the division between the observant and non-observant is no longer mediated by politics, the outcome of such a Kulturkampf could turn out to the disadvantage of the religious minority. This division has become a major source of instability for the political system and—because of the demands of some extreme religious groups—a threat to Israeli democracy. Second, the same rigid political structure that had so long prevented outsiders from changing it proved to be quite open once the Oriental community began to move in. One major achievement of Israeli democracy is that these new groups could bring about a democratic political revolution in 1977 by means of the polls. The change of the government was carried out in an orderly fashion. What is more, after seven years of Likud government, the two major parties joined forces to become partners in a strange and uneasy, but enduring, coalition alliance. In general the democratic rules of the game worked, but they undoubtedly operated under a great deal of pressure and with higher levels of internal friction. The ethnic cleavage showed signs of becoming a source of major internal instability during the 1981 elections; although the tension has waned somewhat, it has not yet disappeared. Should the Oriental ethnic groups begin, as might be expected, to press demands for greater equality in education and employment, for example, it could easily erupt again. The strong correlation between ethnicity and party support for the two major parties—about two-thirds of the Likud voters are Oriental Jews and about twothirds of Labour voters Ashkenazim—carries within it the potential for hardening into a deeply crystallized sociopolitical cleavage. Third, the opening up of the system in the past twenty years has contributed to increased political consciousness among Israeli Arabs, encouraging them in the recent period to demand more equal treatment. The tension between Arabs and Jews in Israel cannot be resolved in isolation from the general conflict, but it does serve as a test for both communities precisely because they are different in almost every way. The danger here for the democratic political system is that this division will not be regarded as an internal problem—one to be dealt with within the State of Israel. If Israeli Arabs out of frustration or for any other reason seek remedies outside the state or if the Jewish majority, for whatever reason, treats the Arab citizens as a scapegoat to be sent to the wilderness for Israel's troubles—not only will the result be instability but it will signify the end of Israel as a democracy. As long as the question of the future of the territories remains unsettled, the three divisions reviewed here cannot be regarded as either primarily social or merely internal. In addition to their potential explosiveness taken separately (and, still more, together), each division also feeds on the others and on twenty years of

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general instability in the state and political system. What has been the impact of these changes on Israel's political system? First, there is less agreement in Israel on most issues and none at all on the future shape of the country. These divisions go beyond party politics and policy options, reaching all the way into the belief systems of individuals and groups with regard to the purposes of Zionism, the meaning of the state and the demarcation of its boundaries. This erosion of the fundamental consensus has weakened the ability of the political system to function through coalition, compromise and accommodation. Second, only the organizational framework of the previous political camps has remained. In the post-1967 period the trend toward loosening the all-encompassing grip of the pre-state camps on society has been almost completed. Nevertheless, these camps—referred to now as Labour, Likud and the religious parties—continue to define the main electoral alternatives for the voters. Ideological differences exist in external affairs and with regard to the territories, but in internal affairs this tripartite division no longer reflects the problems, options and opinions current in the society of the 1980s. A party system that does not represent potential solutions to existing state and social problems undermines the belief in democracy. Third, although Israeli society is still highly politicized, there has been a significant change in the last twenty years in the relationship between government and society and in the power of the major secondary centers such as the Histadrut. Although maintaining much of its strength, the organizational network as a whole has lost its centralized character. In the mid-1980s powerful new economic organizations, social groups, voluntary organizations and pressure groups independently represent their own various and specific interests.27 At the same time, there are indications of new amalgamations of powerful interests, particularly in the economy, and, to be sure, many weak groups that find it extremely difficult to gain a share of public resources. The system as a whole, however, is less closed (particularly for the Israeli-born) and, in this sense, is more democratic. Fourth, in the two decades since the 1967 War, the role of the parties in Israel has weakened considerably, and no one party dominates the system any longer. The 1977 elections put Herat at the head of the coalition, but the absence of a pivotal party proved to be a prescription for instability.28 For example, on the most critical decision of Begin's first government—the Knesset vote on the Camp David Accords and the peace treaty with Egypt—some of the votes needed for a majority had to be found outside the coalition.29 The National Unity cabinet formed by the two major parties in 1984 is eloquent testimony to the breakdown of the old ways of doing politics. It is a temporary, ad hoc mechanism rather than a new pattern. Fifth, the executive became much weaker after the 1973 War, but the vacuum created in the center of the Israeli political system was not filled—as some had feared—by the bureaucracy. Part of the slack was taken up by non-government bodies, but the general result has been a considerable weakening of central steering capacity. Finally, the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court and special quasi-judicial inquiry commissions increasingly exercised closer control over the executive branch and in a number of instances took over decision-making functions. Thus, for example, the High Court of Justice in 1969 decided to allow television broadcasting on the Sabbath; in 1979 it ordered the dismantling of the Elon Moreh settlement in the


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occupied territories; and in 1986 it obliged the government to institute daylight saving time in Israel. The complete list of such actions is much longer; if we add the frequent use of commissions of inquiry, the conclusion is that the judiciary has regularly been called on to exercise considerable power in Israeli society and politics. Part of this power is supervisory, arising from the many attempts of governments to break the law. But part of it is authoritative decision making that has been made necessary by the serious weakening of the executive and the central government. In general the system is more open, politics is more fluid and equality of opportunity has increased. Although no change has taken place in the high election turnout, we do find changes in such aspects of participation as the direct involvement of citizens in election campaigns, the increased activities of pressure groups and voluntary grass roots organizations and a much higher number of political demonstrations and violent strikes.30 What we see, then, is a rather confused picture. The change of government in 1977 was an upheaval in Israeli politics. It is therefore surprising to note, more than ten years later, how relatively little has actually changed. No real transformation has occurred in the way in which Israel conducts its politics and no major reform has been instituted in the national political system during the last two decades. The only major changes have been an increase in political instability after 1973 and a dangerous decline in government steering capacity. Above all, Israel has not yet found an answer to the new situation and set of problems created by the 1967 war. The resulting stalemate and incapacity to take decisions on this most important issue has halted the country in its tracks, creating an inertia and indecision that threaten Israeli democracy. It is no wonder that certain groups have grown rather impatient with the cumbersome democratic process. A particularly dangerous imbalance in the development of Israeli democracy has also surfaced. The formal institutional side of democracy—the rules of the game— remains more or less intact. Elections to the Knesset and local authorities have been held regularly; the 1977 transition of power took place smoothly; the press is generally free, and so on. But the other components of democracy—individual and civil rights as a sine qua non, civic mindedness, respect for the law, and equality before the law—command dangerously limited respect. Although Israeli society has become more democratic in terms of the availability of opportunities for groups that were formerly outsiders, the absence of ingrained democratic values has imperiled the formal rules and undermined public faith in such institutions as the Knesset, the government, the parties and the free press. Assaults on the law by public officials have contributed to this climate and opinion polls reveal a loss of faith in the democratic system, particularly among younger people.31 The threat to Israeli democracy stems from a sense of disorientation, a feeling of insecurity that leads first to frustration and then to xenophobia, racism and other forms of escape from the demands of rationality. As George Mosse warns us, democracy cannot exist unless citizens have a belief in freedom and a sense of responsibility. Once these values are undermined, the end of democracy is very close. Israeli democracy withstood the test in its early formative years, partly because of the politics of compromise. However, the present

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politics of instability pose a grave danger. We are left with dissension without the previous unifying cement of the creation of the state or a strong belief in a just and democratic society as an acceptable goal for the present.

Notes 1. George Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses (New York: 1975), vii. 2. On the concept of steering see Itzhak Galnoor, Steering the Polity: Communication and Politics in Israel (Beverley Hills: 1982), 19-20. 3. Wars usually imply crossing the previous cease-fire lines. Hence people in Israel speak about the five wars during the state period: 1948-49, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982— and occasionally add the War of Attrition (1969-70) and the Litani Operation (1978). 4. The following discussion is based on Itzhak Galnoor, "Israeli Society and Politics, 1967-1987," in Stephen J. Roth (ed.), The Impact of the Six Day War (London: 1988), 171196. 5. Alex Mintz, "The Military-Industrial Complex: American Concepts and Israeli Realities," Journal of Conflict Resolution 29, no. 4 (1985), 623-639. 6. Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis (New York: 1986). 7. The terms "Oriental" and "Western" with reference to the Jews in Israel are misleading because of the many differences within each of these groups. Among the Orientals, there are Jews from modern Alexandria, the mountains of Kurdistan and the deserts of Aden; among the Westerners, there are Jews from the parochial towns of Poland and Russia as well as from cosmopolitan Paris and Berlin. There were, of course, important shared experiences. For the Jewish communities of Europe, these were the processes of Enlightenment and modernization and the trauma of the Holocaust. For the Jewish communities of North Africa and Asia, these were the religious and traditional way of life—where the family and the community played a central role—as well as the experience of Israel's birth and the encounter with Western Zionism. The terms are, nevertheless, convenient for describing a reality created in the State of Israel. 8. The Wadi Salib riot began when a spontaneous demonstration in May 1959 by immigrants from Morocco living in a slum in Haifa became violent, and this was repeated in other North African communities in other cities. The leader was arrested and sentenced to a short prison term. Subsequently, a political party was formed that ran in the 1959 Knesset elections but failed to obtain the required 1 percent minimum of votes. 9. In 1965 Jews of Oriental extraction accounted for about 47 percent of the population, compared to 46 percent of Western extraction. The remaining 7 percent were Israelis— they and their parents being born in Israel. 10. Statistical Abstract of Israel, 37 (1986), 567. 11. Ibid., 310-311; Ibid., 31 (1980), 328-329. 12. Central Bureau of Statistics, Results of the Election to the Eleventh Knesset (Jerusalem: 1985), 30. 13. For a presentation of different approaches among Israeli scholars, see Sammy Smooha, "Shalosh gishot basoziologiah shel yahasei 'edot beyisrael, Megamot 18, nos. 2-3 (1984), 195-201. 14. Knesset speech quoted in Itzhak Galnoor, "Haskamah umahloket bahevrah hayisraelit sheleahar milhemet hashihrur," Skirah hodshit 2-3 (May 1986), 21. 15. Statistical Abstract of Israel, 37 (1986),' 3, 683. 16. Sammy Smooha, The Orientation and Politicization of the Arab Minority in Israel, rev. ed. (Haifa: 1984), 166. 17. Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: 1977), 25-52. 18. Emanuel Gutmann "Dat bapolitikah hayisraelit: gorem meahed umei'aleg," in


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Moshe Lissak and Emanuel Gutmann (eds.), Hama'arekhet hapolitit hayisraelit (Tel-Aviv: 1977), 410. 19. A "minimum winning coalition" is a government coalition with no redundant partners, that is, if any party leaves, the coalition will lose its majority in parliament. See A. De-Swaan, Coalition Theories and Cabinet Formation (Amsterdam: 1973). 20. The most serious attempt was a North African list organized hastily after the Wadi Salib events in 1959. It received about eight thousand votes, very close to the 1 percent threshold. 21. See Galnoor, Steering the Polity, 123-157. 22. Based on Itzhak Galnoor, "Transformations in the Israeli Political System Since the Yom Kippur War," in Asher Arian (ed.), The Elections in Israel 1977 (Jerusalem: 1980), 119-148. 23. In 1954, while Pinhas Lavon was minister of defense, a foiled Israeli intelligence operation in Egypt resulted in death sentences for two Egyptian Jews and long imprisonment for several others. The question of "Who gave the order?"—Lavon or a senior intelligence officer—remained unanswered despite numerous hearings and inquiries. In 1960 Lavon demanded that his name be cleared, and the matter quickly deteriorated into a major political crisis. The Mapai party removed Lavon as secretary-general of the Histadrut; Ben-Gurion resigned and brought down the cabinet; the Knesset was dissolved and early elections were held (August 1961). Ben-Gurion's decision to leave his party and form a new one in the 1965 elections derived, in part, from the Lavon Affair. 24. The years were characterized by a mood of helplessness and even despair. If jokes may be regarded as an indicator of a perception of low political efficacy, note that a booklet "All the Eshkol Jokes" was published at this time and became very popular in Israel, giving ample expression to public sentiments in this period. One of the best-known jokes circulating at the time in Israel was: A sign in Lod Airport: "Last one to leave the country, please turn off the lights!" 25. From 1968 to 1972 the per capita GNP grew annually by an average 8.5 percent compared with a decline of 1.4 percent in 1967-68. 26. Itzhak Galnoor, "The 1984 Elections," Middle East Review 18, no. 4 (1986), 54. 27. See Yael Yishai, Kvuzot interes beyisrael (Tel-Aviv: 1987). 28. A pivot party is one without which no coalition to its left or to its right (however defined) can be formed. 29. Itzhak Galnoor and Avraham Diskin, "Merhakim politiim ushlitah parlementarit: hadiyunim baknesset 'al heskemei hashalom 'im mizrayim," Medinah, mimshal vihasim benleumiyyim 18 (Autumn 1982), 5-26. 30. Sam Lehman-Wilzig, "Conflict as Communication—Public Protest in Israel 19501982," in Stuart Cohen and Eliezer Don-Yehiya (eds.), Conflict and Consensus in Jewish Political Life (Ramat Gan: 1986), 128-146. 31. See Moshe Negbi, Me al lahok (Tel-Aviv: 1987); for an opinion poll of young people, see Seker 'emdot shel bnei no'ar (Jerusalem, The Van Leer Institute: 1986).

The Changing Legitimations of the State of Israel Erik Cohen (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

THE DILEMMAS OF LEGITIMATION OF ISRAEL The principles of legitimation on which the State of Israel is based are only rarely discussed explicitly in the social scientific literature on Israel.1 Most researchers apparently take it for granted that Israel is a Zionist or, more broadly, a modern Jewish nation-state. A closer scrutiny of the principles on which Israel was established and, particularly, of the fundamental ideological and political struggles concerning the basic character of the state indicates, however, that the situation is not all that simple. In fact, Israel was based on contrasting principles; as the contrast between them unfolded in the course of Israel's history, a conflict between opposing conceptions of the nature of the state emerged. Different sectors of the population stressed one or another of the underlying legitimatory principles according to their ideological orientation and political interests. In the course of the dramatic historical events and social changes that Israel experienced in the first forty years of its existence, significant shifts have taken place in the conception of the nature of the state among broad strata of the Israeli public, even though the original formal principles of the legitimation of the state—insofar as they were ever made explicit—remained basically unchanged. These shifts reflect the continuous efforts to resolve some fundamental dilemmas inherent in the contrasting principles of legitimation on which the state was originally based. Three sets of dilemmas can be distinguished; the attempt to resolve each of them led to a distinct type of shift in the public legitimation of the state in successive stages of Israel's history. 1. The State of Israel was created by a movement, the Zionist movement, in which the ideology of pioneering socialist Zionism, which sought to mold the country according to its own revolutionary and Utopian image, was dominant.2 But the state was established on democratic principles that also provided for the legitimate involvement and participation of those sectors of society not committed to that specific image or that advocated an alternative to it. 3 2. Israel was to be a Jewish nation-state; as a nation-state, its fundamental legitimation was conceived in terms of particularistic Jewish national symbols; but as a 148

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modern civil nation-state, its fundamental legitimation was conceived in terms of the universalistic precepts of democratic freedom and equality before the law of all of its citizens.4 3. The state was to be the realization of the historical aspirations of the Jewish people for national autonomy in the land promised to them by God, as maintained and preserved in the Jewish religious tradition. But the state was to be established by man's own efforts rather than by divine redemption, and it has been conceived in essentially secular rather than religious terms by its founders.5 Each of these dilemmas rose to prominence on the Israeli political scene in a different period of its history. In the fortieth year of its existence, Israel is deeply engaged in the third and most acute of these dilemmas, the resolution of which will be crucial for the future character of the state.

MOVEMENT AND STATEHOOD Inherent in the Zionist ideology was a basic tension: Zionism was a secular ideology aspiring to achieve Jewish national liberation and independence. It sought to put that achievement on a novel, non-religious basis by creating Jewish sovereignty through human political action rather than wait expectantly for its realization by future divine intervention. The secularity of this effort would also establish the Jewish nation as a "normal" nation with a state of its own, like the "nations of the world" (umot ha'olam).6 By the same token, the state was to be devoid of intrinsic religious significance and not to be regarded on a soteriological plane. Indeed, ultraOrthodox Jews opposed it precisely because it had not been ordained by God—even though most ultra-Orthodox groups in Israel eventually accommodated to it.7 Revolutionary Zionism, however, sought to establish not only a national state but an enlightened nation-state, one based on the principles of democracy and equality for all citizens irrespective of race or religion. Indeed, these principles became enshrined in Israel's Declaration of Independence, which in the Israeli courts gradually acquired the status of a constitution in nuce, in the absence of a full-fledged constitution.8 In every nation-state that aspires to be both national and democratic, an inherent tension exists between two principles of legitimation, each of which derives from one of the terms of this hyphenated concept.9 The ' 'nation" is essentially a primordial, particularistic entity that looks backward to the common origins and history of its members. Legitimation of the state in national terms is thus necessarily traditional in Weber's terminology: the state "belongs" to the nation and its raison d'etre is to uphold and safeguard the nation's continuity and independence.10 The effective political community is that of the members of the national entity; nonmembers, even if citizens, would not—in light of this traditional-national legitimation of the state—be seen as full participants in the political community, whatever their formal civil and political status. In the case of Israel, the effective political community would consist of the Jewish nationals; non-Jews, particularly Arabs, would not be considered full-fledged members of the political community.

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The "state," however, the complementary term in the hyphenated concept, is essentially a formal, legally defined and, in the modern democratic sense, universalistic entity, membership in which derives from the laws of citizenship. The raison d'etre of the state is to realize its collective goals, which are, in turn—at least ideally—an expression of the will of its citizens. In contrast to the nation, the state is "forward-looking" as a framework of policy-making for the realization of these collective goals and aspirations.11 Legitimation of the state in this sense is necessarily "legal-rational" in Weber's terminology.12 The effective political community is that of the collectivity of citizens, all of whom share equal citizenship rights. In the Israeli case, all citizens, irrespective of whether they are Jews or Arabs, Zionists or non-Zionists, and so on, would thus have an equally legitimate right to participate in the political community. The pioneering socialist Zionist movement, dominant in the Jewish community in the period of the establishment of the state, sought to incorporate harmoniously both principles of legitimation into the basic makeup of the new state. True, Israel was to be a Jewish state and all the basic symbols of statehood—the flag, the emblem and the national anthem—would be Jewish, hence essentially particularistic. But these were not intended to convey a Jewish exclusiveness; rather, the particularistic Jewish character of the state was to be merged with a secular universalistic ethos that, although borrowed in its modern manifestation from the "nations of the world," was itself seen as having its roots in the ethic of the prophets of ancient Israel. Israel was to become an exemplary state, a "light unto the nations" (or lagoyim).13 Paradoxically, these high principles served in practice to narrow the scope of the effective political community, even with regard to the Jewish population, however broadly that community may have been conceived in principle. The ideology of revolutionary Zionism, especially pioneering socialist Zionism, demanded that the individual Jew be transformed (reborn as a new man) according to the ideology's particular values before the individual becomes acceptable as a full-fledged participant in the political community. The mass of new immigrants who reached the country in large numbers between 1948 and 1951 were thus considered unfit for full political participation until they were absorbed (niklatim) and duly reeducated in the light of revolutionary Zionist values. The fact that they were Jewish and in immigrating had exercised their right of return gave themformal civil and political rights, but reeducation was considered a prerequisite for their substantive participation. A state had been established, but the dominant pioneering socialist Zionism still conceived the effective political community as composed of members of a movement—even though that movement now took on the form of a political party— Mapai.14 However, neither pioneering socialist Zionism nor any other Zionist movement or political party succeeded in imprinting its particular image of the future ideal society on the new state or in transforming its particular values into the basic principles of the state's legitimation.15 Even though pioneering socialist Zionism was the dominant movement in the early years of statehood, its principal creation, the collective kibbutz form of life—whatever its importance as a symbol of the movement—soon lost its primacy in the emergent Israeli society and suffered a


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major crisis in the period immediately following the establishment of the state.16 The pioneering socialist Zionist movement was unable to induce the masses of new immigrants to adopt its lifestyle or to convert them to its ideology. Moreover, the political leadership of the country—particularly David Ben-Gurion—quickly perceived the problems and dangers inherent in too narrow an identification of the state with the movement, and they sought to create for it a wider, more comprehensive ideological basis. This would not be identified with any of the pre-state movements and would thus help to create national institutions devoid of specific ideological or political coloration as well as to broaden the effective political community. This effort eventually led Ben-Gurion to propose the ideology of mamlakhtiut ("statism"),17 which emphasized a comprehensive concern with the broad interests of the state and the formation of its institutions as against segmentation of society by narrow sectional frameworks.18 However, this concern of Ben-Gurion's did not eventuate in a separation between the level of politics—in which the competition among the various movements now took the form of a contest between different political parties—and the level of the state and its institutions. Rather, during the first period of Israel's existence, in which great numbers of immigrants entered the country, the state and its institutions tended to be identified with the dominant political party of the time, Mapai, which was headed by Ben-Gurion himself and nominally embodied the pioneering socialist Zionist ideology.19 This was the period during which in the eyes of many, particularly the newcomers, Ben-Gurion personified the state; the period during which opposition to the government and its policies was often perceived as disloyalty to the state itself; the period in which even Zionist movements and parties that opposed the prevailing hegemony of Mapai were tainted with illegitimacy—as was the case, in particular, with the heir of the Revisionist Zionist party, Herut, led by Menachem Begin.20 Such illegitimacy was implied in Ben-Gurion's famous dictum that he was prepared to establish a coalition government with all political parties but "without Maki [the non-Zionist Communist party] and Herut." This did not mean, however, that Herut or even Maki was precluded from participating in the political contest; for Israel, being formally a democratic state, permitted freedom of political expression to any ideological position—insofar as it did not threaten the security of the state. This important proviso was used solely for one purpose: to prevent any organized expression of Arab national aspirations, as particularly in the ban on the Arab national party al-Ard in the early 1960s.21 This prohibition, however, was carried out in a manner that rendered it consistent with the basic democratic freedoms of Israel's citizens, the ban being based on "reasons of security." In the early period of statehood, a contrast thus emerged between a broad and a narrow conception of the state and the corresponding definitions of the boundaries of the political community. Although the broad definition was anchored in the formal principle of the legitimation of Israel as a civil state, the narrow definition derived from its perception in terms of the specific ideology of the Zionist movement, especially of the then-dominant pioneering socialist Zionism. This narrow definition excluded from the effective political community not only non-Jews but also those Jews who were not fully reeducated and absorbed. A discrepancy be-

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tween the formal legitimation of the state and the informal one prevailing in leading sectors of Israeli society thus emerged in the early stage of the state's existence. And though the salience of pioneering socialist Zionism soon declined, the discrepancy was reproduced in other forms in subsequent stages.

NATIONALISM AND STATEHOOD Revolutionary pioneering socialist Zionism was the official ideology of the Israeli establishment in the early period of statehood. As the state matured, however, new situations and new problems emerged, to which the official ideology had no effective answers. The overall disenchantment with the dominant ideology, the sense of discrimination and marginalization common to a wide strata of the new immigrants from Asia and Africa as well as (later on) the radically new circumstances created by the Six Day War of 1967 saw a shift in the public perception of the state. This shift is expressed, primarily, in the emergence of a neotraditional Jewish nationalism.22 Its emergence in turn sharpened the contrast between the universalistic and particularistic principles in the legitimation of the state. To comprehend this shift, we have to explicate briefly the relationship between Zionism and Judaism. Despite its efforts toward secularization and dissociation from religion, Zionism inherited from Judaism a basic tension between the particularistic and universalistic components of its ideology, which, transformed, found expression in the contrasting national and civil legitimating principles on which the state was founded. This tension is inherent in the Jewish religious self-conception of chosenness: at the risk of some over-simplification, this sense of chosenness, that is, Jewish particularism, derives from the conception that the Jews have been chosen to be the bearers to the world, through the Scripture and particularly the prophets, of an exalted, universalistic ethic—that very ethic that eventually, mutatis mutandis, became the kernel of the ethic of modern civility. Paradoxically, however, when in the name of that ethic the Jews of the Diaspora were offered full civil rights as individuals, they found themselves in a quandary: the Jewish "ordeal of civility"23 was engendered precisely by the inability of the Jews to maintain their collective separateness once they were fully integrated as individuals in the universalistic modern civil state. Zionism sought to overcome that dilemma by creating a Jewish state that would endow its citizens with both universalistic individual civil rights and a particularistic national sovereignty. The mainstream Zionist movements, especially pioneering socialist Zionism, conceived of Israel as a Jewish national state whose foundations, however, were at the same time basically secular and civil.24 Jewish religious symbols thoroughly permeated Zionism,25 but these symbols were endowed with new secular meanings. The secular Zionist founders of the State of Israel sought strenuously to dissociate the state they founded from any direct religious connotations, even if they were forced to make the concession to the Jewish religious parties, for political considerations, of inserting the phrase "Rock of Israel" ("zur yisrael") into the Declaration of Independence,26 and later on to reach an agreement with them regarding the


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application of the religious law in Israel's legal system and public life (the so-called status quo). Even in the Jewish religious consciousness, however, the universalistic and particularistic principles were differentially emphasized, and this difference quickly made itself felt in the perception and legitimation of the Zionist state as well. In Judaism the universalistic principle was in modern times stressed primarily by members of the intellectual elite, especially those who sought to represent Judaism to the non-Jewish world; in popular consciousness, it was the particularistic principle that tended to rank first. I would argue that this bifurcation now found expression in the different emphases accorded the two basic principles of legitimation in the new state: the universalistic principle of civility and its political correlate, democracy, was progressively institutionalized at the formal level and found its major expression in the institutional makeup of the state. But among the Jewish population at large, the legitimation accorded the state by the particularistic, national principle had primacy over the civil, universalistic one. This primacy was intensified as a neotraditionalist Jewish nationalism emerged. As we have seen, despite—or even because of—the efforts of revolutionary Zionism to unify and rejuvenate the Jewish immigrants, an unexpected and unintended division within the Jewish citizens of Israel emerged after the period of mass immigration and persevered into the 1960s and 1970s. Two Israels emerged in the Jewish population: the "first Israel" (yisrael harishonah), congealing around the core of old-timers, was joined by new immigrants from Europe and America and a minority of Afro-Asian immigrants who were absorbed; the "second Israel" (yisrael hasheniyah) consisted of an ethnoclass27 of the lower strata of Afro-Asian immigrants. These were considered new immigrants ('olim hadashim) even decades after their immigration because they failed, as it were, to pass the rite-de-passage of absorption into Israeli society. From the present perspective it should be noted that in order to become full-fledged participants in the political community the fact of their Jewishness was a necessary but not sufficient condition; they remained marginal because they failed to be absorbed—acculturated to the norms and behavior patterns approved by the old-timer establishment. Absorption, initially a mechanism of full participation, now became a barrier to it. Considerable, though at first covert, resentment built up against the old-timer establishment and its domination of access to the political center. This found its most dramatic expression in the emergence of the Black Panther movement in the early 1970s.28 Though apparently an ethnic movement, composed of the youth of Moroccan-Jewish parentage, the Panthers, in fact, protested against their exclusion from, and lack of access to, the center of Israeli society. In themselves a small group, the Panthers enjoyed considerable support in the "second Israel." One can interpret the message of the Panthers movement and its popularity as the demand for the social acceptance of, and political access for, the "second Israel," without the precondition of absorption. In other words, they denied the right of the old-timers to regulate access to the center on the basis of the old ideology. They expressed the quest of the "second Israel" for full political participation and a voice of their own in Israeli politics. The sufficient criterion of such access and participation, however, would no longer be

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the extent of absorption of immigrant Jews, but rather their Jewishness itself; what was formerly a prerequisite of full participation, a necessary condition, now became a sufficient one. This shift coincided with a marked decline in the salience of revolutionary Zionist values and especially of pioneering socialist Zionism even among many of the oldtimers and their children born and coming of age in Israel. The resulting ideological vacuum was for many filled by a strident Jewish nationalism stripped of the revolutionary, universalistic aspects of the older Zionist ideology. By different routes oldtimers of European origin and relative newcomers of Asian or African origin as well as their progeny now converged on a common ground of nationalism, with strong primordial and neotraditional overtones. This trend stressed membership in the nation as the principal basis of the political community, which would thus be equally accessible to all Jews without qualification. The trend found expression in a renewed emphasis on traditional Jewish symbols and conceptions, often linked to the readoption of religious customs; this reorientation made the outlook of its adherents closer to that of the Jews of the Diaspora than to the "new Jew" that revolutionary Zionism had striven to create. The implication of this shift in ideological orientation was that Israel was increasingly seen merely as a Jewish state, in strict particularistic terms, to the detriment of the universalistic component of its legitimation, stressed by the older, revolutionary Zionist ideology. The trend toward the new nationalism grew significantly after the Israeli victories in the Six Day War of 1967, as a result of which Israel came to dominate a large Palestinian-Arab population; it grew even more after the unexpected calamities experienced by Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The new nationalism eventually found its political expression in a marked swing to the right, which came to full expression in the wake of the 1973 war. It contributed considerably to the rise to power in 1977 of the Likud, at the center of which stood the Herut party.29 Although intensely Zionist, the Revisionist ideology of the founders of Herut had never demanded the complete transformation of the Jews in Israel. This outlook was more congenial than that of revolutionary Zionism to the adherents of the emergent neotraditional Jewish nationalism, among them many Oriental immigrants and their children born in Israel as well as substantial numbers of first- and, especially, second-generation immigrants of European background. Indeed, as members of Herut who had not been socialized into the original Revisionist worldview attained positions of influence in the party, they may, in fact, have contributed to a modification of its original Revisionism and thus helped to make it into a nationalist party appealing to a broad spectrum of Israel's Jewish population. The trend to Jewish neotraditional nationalism exacerbated the tension between the particularistic and the universalistic principles of Israel's legitimation. Throughout the period of the 1960s and the 1970s, on the formal institutional level, Israel— within the Green Line—came increasingly closer to becoming a modern democratic state that safeguarded the civil rights of all its citizens, irrespective of their origin, nationality or religion. Israeli bureaucracy during the 1960s and 1970s became more professional, increasingly manifesting an impersonal, universalistic, rule-governed


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approach to the citizenry and accompanied by a gradual decline in the crass favoritism (protekzia) employed by officials on behalf of their friends or personal clients in earlier years.30 Greater universalism was not only observable in the relation of the state and its institutions to the Jewish population but also with regard to Israeli Arabs. Although Israel was perceived to be a Jewish state, it included from the very outset a not inconsiderable Arab population.31 The problem inherent in the Arab status—as citizens of the state but not members of the dominant national collectivity—did not emerge immediately upon the establishment of the state. In the first years after statehood, the Arabs were considered a vanquished enemy people and placed under military government, which was abolished only in 1966, nearly twenty years after Israel achieved statehood.32 Emergency ordinances and other devices were applied to deny Arabs in practice those equal civil rights they had been promised in theory. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, many of these restrictive practices were gradually revoked. Arabs were allotted a recognized, though not fully equal, status in the political community under the apparently neutral but politically highly charged designation of "minority" (mi'uf). As such, they were entitled to enjoy personal civil rights, but they were denied the right to collective organization on a national basis. Arab activists, in fact, increasingly fought in the bureaucracy and the courts to protect and expand their civil rights. Insofar as they identified with the state and extended it legitimacy, they invoked the universalistic civil principle of legitimation. The trend in the perception of the state by the Arab citizens thus ran contrary to the trend in the Jewish population. The civil and democratic aspect of the state gave Arabs a foothold in the political community and a stake in its continued existence.33 As the Arabs increasingly emphasized the civil nature of the state, the gap between their perception of the state and that of the Jewish majority tended to widen rather than become narrower over time. A widening discrepancy thus emerged between the popular nationalist sentiments increasingly taking hold among a growing number of Jews—who were not always sympathetic to, or protective of, the civil rights of non-members of the national community—and the formal institutionalization of those rights in Israel within the Green Line. In fact, the growth of neotraditional nationalism probably contributed significantly to a decline in the consideration shown co-citizens who happened not to be members of the national group or who differed significantly in their political attitudes. Such a lack of consideration can be observed, particularly during periods of tension, in infringements on the norms of civility. The most common examples are verbal and physical attacks on left-wing demonstrators; the greatest excess until now was the murder of Emil Grunzweig during a Peace Now demonstration in 1983. Attempts to encroach on the civil rights of Arabs by representatives of the authorities as well as Jewish settlers, particularly in the occupied territories, are recurrent events. Consequently, the Israeli courts have come to play an increasingly important role in the protection of the civil rights of Israelis as well as of the Arabs in the occupied territories; and the Supreme Court—guided by the Declaration of Independence as a substitute constitution—became the strongest defender of the civil character of the state against both the general public and the government

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authorities. Though some political groups have attempted to legislate new laws that would make inroads into the civil character of the state, these have until the present remained largely unsuccessful.34 Although the growing tension between the basic principles underlying Israel's legitimation was provoked by forces inherent in the development of Israeli society, they were exacerbated by the prolonged occupation of the territories that fell into the hands of Israel in the 1967 war. The deep chasm between the liberal, democratic and basically civil character of Israel within the Green Line and the situation in the occupied territories under military domination could not fail to reflect on the situation within Israel proper.35 The occupation threatened some of the basic parameters on which Israel was initially established: a democratic nation-state can preserve both its democratic as well as its national character only if the minorities within its boundaries are of a relatively small size. But Israel at present controls a large nonJewish population that does not enjoy the rights of democratic political participation. Any attempt to endow it with civil and political rights in the wake of an annexation of the territories would necessarily change the Jewish character of the state, whereas a permanent disenfranchisement of the non-Jews would destroy Israel's democratic character.36 In the latter case the tension between the principles of legitimation would, in a sense, be resolved—by a complete victory of particularism over universalism. In such an eventuality the political community would cease to be defined in terms of the universalistic citizenship of the state and would be exclusively defined in terms of particularistic membership of the nation. Moreover, the occupation also brought under Jewish domination for the first time, the whole of the Biblical Land of Israel west of the Jordan. This reunification gave a new direction to Jewish nationalism, which acquired in some quarters increasingly religious overtones. RELIGION AND STATEHOOD The relationship between the Jewish religion and Zionism was a problematic issue and a point of contention from the very inception of the Zionist movement, and preoccupied the founders of the state from its very establishment.37 Nevertheless, whatever the tensions between secular Jewish nationalism and Orthodox Judaism on the ideological and political levels throughout the period from the establishment of the state until the 1970s, there emerged no widely perceived theological issue regarding the status of Israel as a Jewish state and, hence, no profound problem of its religious legitimation.38 It is the emergence of this issue in recent years and its repercussions on the problem of the legitimation of the state that will be briefly discussed now. Religious Zionism took an active part in the struggle leading to the establishment of the state, and religious political parties have participated in virtually all government coalitions since then. When the state was established, many religious Zionists vaguely identified the event with the "Beginning of Redemption" (ithalta dege'ulah); this raised some halakhic questions, especially regarding the religious status of national holidays, but it did not have far-reaching implications for their perception


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of the nature of the state. The belief, strong in the early period, appears to have become less salient later on, only to resurge in a different manner in recent years. During most of the years of statehood, Israel was accepted by the great majority of religious Zionists as a secular state that enabled the Jews to live a full Jewish life in their land, but religious Zionists did not seriously ascribe to it any intrinsic soteriological significance as a stage in the divinely ordered process of salvation. Indeed, except among some marginal extremist groups, no demand was made that Israel become a theocracy based on divine legitimation or that the political community be defined by purely religious criteria. Most leaders of religious political parties, Zionist and non-Zionist, were primarily concerned to impose religious law and practices (halakhah) on as many areas of national life as possible. This imposition sought to express the Jewish character of the state. No full separation between state and religion could, therefore, take place in Israel,39 even though most religious Zionists conceded that the fundamental legitimatory principles on which the state is based are secular, national and civil rather than religious. Indeed, some religious Jews could relate to the state without a conflict with their faith only because it was a secular entity. There was, however, one stream of thought in Orthodox Judaism that saw the ingathering of the Jews in the Land of Israel and (later) the establishment of the state in a significantly different light. This leads back to Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, who served as the chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine and was the only major Orthodox theologian of his time who sought to relate the realization of Zionist aims to God's work of Redemption, even though this work might have been carried out unknowingly by secular Jews.40 The Zionist enterprise was thus identified with the process of Redemption. Inherent in such a conception was the possibility of endowing the (future) state of Israel with an intrinsic soteriological significance and, by implication, with legitimation on fundamental religious grounds. Neither at that time nor for the first thirty years of Israel's existence, however, was this idea widely known and disseminated among either religious Zionists who accepted the Jewish state or among their Orthodox adversaries who rejected it on theological grounds. Two major historical events had a decisive, though contrasting, impact on the interpretation of the meaning of the State of Israel among religious Zionist circles: the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The Six Day War had all the marks of high drama: Israel, perceived to be in mortal danger from its enemies, not only vanquished them decisively but also occupied the whole of what was once Mandatory Palestine. Such a drama lends itself to interpretation in miraculous or providential terms; its plausibility was enhanced by the fact that the limits of the territory now occupied by Israel roughly corresponded to the boundaries of the Promised Land. A broad tendency toward an identification with Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) as against the State of Israel took place within different sectors of the Jewish collectivity in Israel.41 This tendency was a natural extension of the preceding one toward neotraditional Jewish nationalism, and it opened the way for a more fundamentally religious, soteriological interpretation of the State of Israel. This reorientation was facilitated both by the vacillation of the old-timer Israeli establishment over the meaning of the radically changed situation created by the Six Day

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War and by their inability to come to ideological terms with the war's consequences. The nationalist-religious synthesis became for many a most attractive alternative. However, it took the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to bring to the forefront of Israeli public life a religious movement that posed a radical alternative to previous Zionist and even nationalist interpretations of Israel: the Bloc of the Faithful (Gush Emunim).42 The October War was a period of setback, an earthquake (re'idat adamah), that not only precipitated a profound social and political crisis in Israel but also constituted a threat to whatever soteriological interpretations or expectations the Six Day War may have aroused. It is here that Gush Emunim came up with an ingenious solution: basing their analysis on the teachings of Rabbi A. I. Kook, as interpreted by his son Zvi Yehuda Hakohen Kook in the Merkaz Harav Yeshivah in Jerusalem, the ideologues of the Gush claimed that the process of Redemption was, in fact, evolving, but that its ontological reality had not yet penetrated into the consciousness of the Jews of Israel. They interpreted the reversal of 1973 as part of the ups and downs of the process of Redemption—the "birthpangs of the Messiah (hevlei mashiah)" who is soon to come. The answer of the Gush to the frustrations of the Yom Kippur War was an increased activism, expressed mainly in the establishment of a growing number of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. This settlement effort was intended not only to create facts that would prevent a loss of those territories but was also meant as an educational effort aimed at bringing the reality of the ongoing process of Redemption to the consciousness of the Jewish people.43 Given the far-reaching discrediting of the older national leadership and of the whole Israeli establishment that it headed, the activist message of the Gush found a wide response among Israeli Jews, even if it is doubtful that many understood—or accepted—its complex theology. Gush Emunim became the spearhead of a growing religio-nationalist activism that was undoubtedly the most important new factor on the Israeli ideological and political scene in the post-1973 period. The religious activists led in the establishment of unauthorized settlements as a means of pressuring the government to expand the process and area of Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, and they headed the battle to stop the removal of Israeli settlements from Sinai.44 From their ranks also came the "Jewish underground," which attempted to assassinate the mayors of Arab cities on the West Bank and planned to blow up the Dome of the Rock, with the express hope of provoking a war between Israel and the Arab countries: it was believed that such a war, interpreted theologically as the war of Gog and Magog, would hasten the coming of the Messiah.45 Some of their members also provide the most militant opposition to any proposal to return occupied territories to the Arabs. The Gush, however, is only the most articulate and extreme manifestation of a more general politico-religious militancy that after 1973 held in its grip a significant part of the religious Zionist community that in previous periods had largely tended to separate Zionist political and social aspirations from redemptionist visions. This change of heart transformed the major religious-Zionist political party, the National Religious party (NRP) from a dovish party, ready for concessions to Israel's neighbors, to a militant one with strong annexationist proclivities. But the influence of the Gush was much wider than the reach of the NRP. It


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merged well with the aggressive neotraditional nationalism we discussed, some of whose adherents now turned, or returned, to Jewish religious observance and gave their nationalism an expressly religious flavor. The emergent Jewish religious nationalism had a significant impact on the changing perception of the meaning of Israel as a Jewish state and, by implication, on its popular legitimation. This new version of nationalism tends to endow the state with a religious and not merely a secular Zionist or civil legitimation. It tends, in its most extreme formulation, to see in the state a messianic manifestation, an intrinsic stage of the process of Redemption. This perception of the state thus re-integrated the bifurcation of Jewish historical consciousness, which was precipitated by the emergence of Zionism: secular national redemption and messianic redemption. Activist human effort, seen by secular Zionism as a substitute for religious redemptionist hopes and condemned by the ultra-Orthodox community for that very reason, now became integrated into a vision of the divine plan of Redemption. Jewish religious symbols that had been secularized by Zionism now acquired a broad, integrated meaning as national symbols with a religious significance. Many non-religious Jews were attracted by the broad appeal of those symbols and sympathized with the aims and practices of religio-nationalist activism—as shown, for instance, by the wide popular support for an amnesty for the Jewish underground.46 Although the new, activist religio-nationalist ideology has not redefined the boundaries of the effective political community as conceived by neotraditional nationalism, it has reinterpreted and further tightened them. These boundaries were now religiously defined as those of the sacred nation ('am kadosh); while the conviction that the Jews have not merely a historical right to the sole possession of the whole of the Land of Israel but a God-ordained one symbolically disinherited non-Jewish inhabitants—in a much more radical sense than any purely nationalist ideology—and, in principle, denied their right of participation in the political community. In the eyes of religio-nationalist activists, the distinction between those Arabs who are Israeli citizens and the Arabs of the occupied territories no longer held. An outright expulsion of Arabs was expressly advocated by only a small group of extremists, especially by the Kach movement of Rabbi Kahane;47 more recently, however, some persons closer to the center of Israel's political life—such as Rehavam Zeevi, a retired general, and Michael Dekel, a deputy minister belonging to the Herat party—advocated a "transfer" of the Arabs from the occupied territories—a concept that, though in theory more moderate than expulsion, in practical intent differs little from the latter. However, even those religious nationalists who do not—at least not expressly—advocate a removal of the Arabs, tend to reinterpret the basis on which the Arabs live in the Land of Israel: the Arabs are perceived as inhabitants not by civil or customary right but by Jewish tolerance. This tolerance is, however, narrowly circumscribed—Arabs will be tolerated only so long as they do not resist the policies and activities of the authorities and the settlement movements that are based on the conception that the Jews, and the Jews alone, possess an absolute, God-ordained right over the whole Land of Israel. But these positions only reflect a more fundamental reorientation of the activist

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religious nationalists to the civil component of the legitimation of the state, expressed in the readiness of many among them in extreme situations of conflict to put the law of God above the law of the state. The abrogation of the laws of the state in situations like these is, however, not intended to weaken or destroy the state but, paradoxically, to strengthen it when what are perceived as vital issues—such as the removal of Jewish settlements in Sinai—are at stake.48 The "Jewish underground" was also seen by many as a patriotic rather than a terrorist organization that had at heart the ultimate interests of Israel.49 Until now, the issues that induced religious activists to infringe on the law of the state in the name of a higher law have arisen only in the occupied territories, where the civil basis of authority is shaky and where the religio-nationalist interests and commitments are strongest. But there is no intrinsic reason why a similar attitude could not emerge with regard to issues arising within the confines of Israel's boundaries of 1967. This attitude thus represents a serious threat to the civil and democratic character of Israel. An indication of such a threat, at the moment more symbolic than political, was the repeated refusal of Rabbi Kahane to take the oath of allegiance, pure and simple, of a member of the Knesset (MK); instead, he insisted on giving his assent with the added undertaking "to keep your [God's] laws always and forever."50 Israel is thus experiencing a growing crisis engendered by the tendency of the popular nationalistic and religious activists in the Jewish community to adopt a particularistic exclusivism and to abrogate the formally institutionalized universalistic civil principles in the basic makeup of the state. This tension finds expression in the increased need for intervention by the military authorities to keep public order in the occupied territories in the face of vigilante activities of Jewish settlers and in the growing reliance on the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, to uphold the law and protect the civil rights of both the citizens of the state and the Arab inhabitants of the occupied territories against infringement by both representatives of the government as well as activist nationalist groups. These tensions are fraught with an explosive potential that could eventually lead to attempts at a fundamental reformulation of the principles of legitimation of the state and thereby of its basic character. Crucial in this respect is the issue of the future of the occupied territories: either way, but for different reasons, the universalistic civil character of the state is threatened by a decision to return the territories as well as by a decision to annex the territories to Israel. In the former case, civil unrest, possibly reaching the proportions of a civil war, may break out; in the latter case, the threat of a significant, eventually overwhelming increase in the political power of Arab citizens may lead to a formal decision to curtail their civil and political rights, thus turning Israel into a Herrendemokratie ("master democracy").

CONCLUSIONS Our discussion of the principal stages of change in the legitimation of the state reveals several points crucial for an understanding of the social and cultural dynamics of Israel forty years after its establishment. The most startling and paradoxical


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conclusion relates to the interplay of history and myth in the perception of the state. Zionism was initially an attempt to break out of the mythical view of Jewish history, which envisioned an eventual divine Redemption, and to achieve the renewal of Jewish nationhood in secular historical time. It did so, however, by secularizing the myth. The developments considered here indicate that the period of statehood has witnessed the emergence of an increasingly intense trend toward a sacralization of the Zionist myth and the reincorporation of the state into the mythical conception of Jewish history. One could argue that Zionism and the dramatic historical events in which it played a leading role had, as it were, torn a hole in the "sacred canopy"51 of the Jewish religious construction of reality and that the subsequent religious reinterpretations of those events, seeking to endow them with an over-arching meaning, constitute an attempt to mend that canopy. The success of this effort is as yet by no means complete, and there are significant non-religious sectors in Israeli society that are resolutely opposed to the politico-religious messianism and the accompanying mystification of Israel's statehood represented by religio-nationalist activism. These sectors, however, are on the defensive; as revolutionary Zionism and particularly pioneering socialist Zionism become an anachronistic ideology in the eyes of many Israelis, they find it hard to formulate an attractive and respectable ideology as a viable alternative to the trend toward a religious interpretation of the state. Not only has Zionism secularized the Jewish historical myth, it has also reproduced the basic duality of particularism and universalism inherent in Judaism and incorporated it into the foundations of the state. Israel was conceived and legitimated as a nation-state, both particularistically national and universalistically civil. The state was intended to resemble any "normal" modern, Western nationstate as well as to give political expression to the revolutionary Zionist ideological conception of a Jewish state, whose very Jewish character would also make it an enlightened one. This conception—promulgated by the old-timer Zionist establishment—furnished the principles of legitimation of the state that were formally incorporated in its foundation. Internal developments in Israeli society precipitated by historical events (e.g., mass immigration, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War), however, gradually rent asunder the two principles of legitimation. Although the state, its organs and especially the judiciary upheld the universalistic civil principle, the trend of popular opinion in the Jewish community tended increasingly to the ever-more exclusive legitimation of the state in particularistic terms—a trend that found its ultimate consummation in the soteriological religious legitimation of Israel by the ideology of religio-nationalist activism, which emerged with considerable impact on the Israeli political scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This increasingly intransigent Jewish particularism, which powerfully manifested itself on the popular level, conflicted with the trend toward an ever-more comprehensive institutionalization of universalism on the formal level. The most blatant manifestations of the clash between these two principles have until the present time been limited to the occupied territories. Here the clash was most notable in dramatic conflicts between the law of God as interpreted by religio-nationalist activists, and the law and authority of the state. But, as any attempt to carry through the full implications of a religious legitimation of the state would necessarily threaten to

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undermine its civil democratic foundations, there are no a priori reasons that the conflict should not also engender, in the future, violent clashes within Israel proper. As the adherence to universalistic principles weakens in wide sectors of the Israeli Jewish public, the courts, especially the Supreme Court, have ever-more often been invoked as a last resort to protect them. As the universalistic, civil principle of legitimation gradually loses wide public support, attempts to abrogate it formally, through legislation, may eventually succeed. As Israel, in its fortieth year, seems to enjoy considerable external security and to be overcoming its most pressing economic problems, urgent danger signals loom on the horizon, threatening eventually to destroy the old Zionist dream of a modern, national but enlightened Jewish state.

Notes 1. Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel (Berkeley: 1983), is probably the most ambitious attempt to date to deal with the problem, even though these authors define it in terms of dominant ideology rather than in terms of legitimation. I concur with much of their empirical argument but disagree with their theoretical argument that the developments described by them in any way represent a "civil" religion as conceived by Rousseau and, more recently, by Robert Bellah in "Civil Religion in America," Daedalus 96 (1967), 1-21. However, I shall not discuss this problem here; I deal with it in Erik Cohen, "Citizenship, Nationality and Religion in Israel and Thailand," in Baruch Kimmerling (ed.), The Israeli State and Society, Boundaries and Frontiers (Albany: 1989). I have come across only one paper dealing expressly with our subject: Donna R. Divine, "Political Legitimacy in Israel: How Important Is the State?" in Ernest Krausz (ed.), Politics and Society in Israel (New Brunswick: 1985), 214-232. The problem of legitimation was also touched on explicitly, but briefly, in two other books on Israel: Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Transformation of Israeli Society (London: 1985); and Asher Arian, Politics in Israel: The Second Generation (Chatham: 1985). 2. On the ideology of pioneering socialist Zionism, see Arthur Hertzberg (ed.), The Zionist Idea—A Historical Analysis and Reader (New York: 1959), 329-395; see also Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion, 25-58. 3. See, for example, Daniel J. Elazar, "Israel's Compound Polity," in Krausz (ed.), Politics and Society in Israel, 43-80. 4. On the principles of the Israeli nation-state, see, Eisenstadt, Transformation, 161163. 5. Cf. Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, "The Dilemma of Reconciling Traditional Culture and Political Needs: Civil Religion in Israel," in Krausz (ed.), Politics and Society in Israel, 199-200. 6. On the theme of normality in the Zionist ideology, see Eisenstadt, Transformation, 106. 7. See especially the paper by Menahem Friedman, "The State as a Theological Dilemma," in Kimmerling, Israeli State. 8. On the growing recourse to juridical intervention in Israel's administration, see the series of articles by Amnon Rubinstein, "Hamishpatizaziyah shel Yisrael," Ha'aretz, 5-9 June 1987. 9. This analysis develops some ideas of Don Handelman. (Comments presented at the symposium on "State and Religion in Israel," at the Eighty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, 3-7 December 1986.) 10. Max Weber, Economy and Society (New York: 1968), 215-216. 11. Handelman, see n. 9. 12. See n. 10.


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13. See Don Handelman and Leah Shamgar-Handelman, "Imagining the Nation-State: Visual Composition in the Emblem of Israel." (paper presented at the Eighty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, 3-7 December 1986.) Eisenstadt points out that at the level of concrete implementation "several basic tensions and contradictions in the [Zionist] vision" have been revealed. He continues, "The most important were those between the universalistic and the particularistic approach." However, "some of these tensions and contradictions remained dormant for long periods of time" (Eisenstadt, Transformation, p. 87). 14. On the transformation of ideological movements into political parties in Israel, see Eisenstadt, Transformation, 17Iff. 15. The establishment of the State of Israel created a unified institutional system out of the separate social and ideological movements and sectors of the prestate period; the visions of none of these could thus be fully embodied in the new state. Cf. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Israeli Society (New York and London: 1967), 143ff. 16. See, for example, Samuel Koenig, "The Crisis in Israel's Collective Settlements," Jewish Social Studies 14 (1952), 145-166; Stanley Diamond, "The Kibbutz: Utopia in Crisis," Dissent 4 (1957), 132-140. 17. On the ideology of statism, see Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion, 81-122. 18. The ideology of statism was influential in creating unified national institutions that replaced the separate institutional frameworks of the different movements and sectors of the Jewish community that were established during the pre-state period. Statism also stressed unifying national symbols to which members of all (Jewish) ideological and political streams could feel allegiance. See Peter Y. Medding, Mapai in Israel (Cambridge: 1972), 227-237; Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion, 81-122. 19. See Divine, "Political Legitimacy," 218ff. 20. Cf., for instance, the following quotation from Arian, "Mapai was perceived as legitimate, Herut as illegitimate" (Politics, 72). Note, not less legitimate, but illegitimate. 21. On the formation and banning ofal-Ard, see Jacob M. Landau, The Arabs in Israel: A Political Study (London: 1969), 92-107. 22. See Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion; these authors refer to the new neotraditional nationalism as the "New Civil Religion" (123ff.); see also Erik Cohen, "Ethnicity and Legitimation in Contemporary Israel," Jerusalem Quarterly 28 (1983), 111-124. 23. See John M. Cuddihy, The Ordeal of Civility (New York: 1974). 24. This is true even for the religious Zionist movement, although some religious Zionists endowed the movement with theological significance. This point will be taken up later. 25. Cf., for instance, a recent statement by Raymond Cohen, ' 'Zionism which sought to develop a new Jewish culture, to create a 'New Jew,' employs a vocabulary which is closer to a prayerbook than to secular literature. The words Israel, aliyah (immigration to Israel), geulah (redemption), shelihut (mission), korban (sacrifice), and kibuz-galuyot (ingathering of the exiles) are loaded with religious meaning" ("Lehistakel laapifior yashar la'einayim," Politikah [January 1987] p. 15). 26. Under pressure of religious Zionist parties, the phrase "Rock of Israel" (zur y israel), a reference to the divinity, was inserted in the Declaration of Independence, which was otherwise formulated in a secular vein. 27. On the emergence of an ethnoclass in Israel, see Dov Weintraub and Vered Kraus, "Social Differentiation and Locality of Residence: Spatial Distribution, Composition and Stratification in Israel," Settlement Study Center Working Paper, (Rehovot: 1981). 28. On the Black Panther movement, see Erik Cohen, "The Black Panthers and Israeli Society," Jewish Journal of Sociology 14 (1972), 93-110; Deborah Bernstein, "The Black Panthers of Israel: 1971-1972" (Ph.D. diss., University of Sussex, 1977). 29. See Asher Arian (ed.), The Elections in Israel 1977 (Jerusalem: 1980). 30. On protekzia, see Brenda Danet, Pulling Strings: Biculturalism in Israeli Bureaucracy (Albany: 1988). 31. In 1950 the non-Jewish (predominantly Arab) population of Israel embraced 12.2

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Erik Cohen

percent of the total population; by 1985 it reached 17.5 percent (within the boundaries of the Green Line). Statistical Abstract of Israel 1986, Central Bureau of Statistics (Jerusalem: 1986), 3. 32. On the military administration of Arab areas, see Landau, The Arabs, passim; Sabri Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel (New York and London: 1976), 9-135. 33. On the attitudes of the Arabs of Israel to the state and their objection to Israel's Jewish-Zionist character, see, for example, Sammy Smooha, The Orientation and Politicization of the Arab Minority in Israel. University of Haifa, Jewish-Arab Center and Institute of Middle East Studies, Occasional Papers on the Middle East No. 2, 1980. 34. Thus, an attempt in the Knesset to pass an amnesty law to release those members of the "Jewish underground" still in jail failed by a substantial margin, even though Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir voted in its favor. See Ha'aretz, 9 July 1987, 1,6. 35. On the impact of the occupation on Israeli society, see Dan Horowitz, "The Impact of Occupation on Israeli Society," Jerusalem Quarterly, 43 (1987), 21-36. 36. The rapid increase of the Arab population, both within the Green Line and in the occupied territories, will, if the present trend continues, create an overall Arab majority in the Land of Israel in the early twenty-first century. This trend, popularly known as the demographic time bomb, is presently a major consideration in the ongoing deliberations among Israeli politicians with regard to the future of the occupied territories. 37. On the attitudes of Jewish Orthodoxy to Zionism see, for example, Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Religion and Politics in Israel (Bloomington: 1984), 5778. 38. There was a stream among Orthodox Jews, the followers of Rabbi A. I. Kook, who did endow the state with a theological significance, but this stream did not come into national prominence until the mid-1970s; see n. 42. 39. Cf. Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Religion and Politics, 15-30. 40. See Zvi Yaron, Mishnato shel harav Kook (Jerusalem: 1974). 41. See, for example, Baruch Kimmerling, "Between the Primordial and the Civil Definitions of the Collective Identity: Eretz Israel or the State of Israel?," in Erik Cohen, Moshe Lissak and Uri Almagor (eds.), Comparative Social Dynamics—Essays in Honor of S. N. Eisenstadt (Boulder and London: 1985), 262-283. 42. On Gush Emunim see, Kevin A. Avruch, "Gush Emunim, Politics, Religion and Ideology in Israel," Middle East Review 11, no. 2 (1979). 26-31; David Newman (ed.), The Impact of Gush Emunim (New York: 1985); Gideon Aran, "From Religious Zionism to Zionist Religion, the Roots of Gush Emunim," in Peter Y. Medding et al. (eds). Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 2: The Challenge of Modernity and Jewish Orthodoxy (Bloomington: 1986), 116-143; Eliezer Don-Yehiya, "Jewish Messianism, Religious Zionism and Israeli Politics: The Impact and Origins of Gush Emunim," Middle East Studies 23, no. 2 (1986), 215-234; see also Gideon Aran, "Miziyonut datit ledat ziyonit: shorshei gush emunim vetarbuto" (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1987). 43. Aran, "Miziyonut datit." 44. See Erik Cohen (ed.), The Price of Peace: The Removal of Israeli Settlements from Sinai, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 23, no. 1 (1987), 1-149. [Special issue.] 45. On the "Jewish underground," see Hagai Segal, Ahimyekarim (Jerusalem: 1987); Ehud Sprinzak, "Fundamentalism, Terrorism and Democracy: The Case of the Gush Emunim Underground," History, Culture and Society, Occasional Paper No. 4 (Washington, D.C.: 1986). 46. The proponents of the amnesty (see n. 34) claimed that they enjoyed the support of more than 1.8 million citizens. Though this seems to be a vast exaggeration, there is no doubt that a substantial proportion of Israeli Jews supported the amnesty proposal. 47. On the ideology of Kahanism, upon which Rabbi Kahane's Kach party is founded, see Aviezer Ravitzky, "Roots of Kahanism: Consciousness and Political Reality," Jerusalem Quarterly 39 (1986), 90-108. 48. See Gideon Aran and Michael Feige, "The Movement to Stop the Withdrawal from Sinai: A Sociological Perspective," in Erik Cohen, Price of Peace, 73-87.


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49. The "Jewish underground" enjoyed a widely shared, though not unanimous support in the right wing of Israeli politics where its actions against Arabs in the occupied territories were perceived as acts of patriotism rather than terrorism. 50. Devora Getzler, "Kahane Ousted from the Knesset," Jerusalem Post, 9 June 1987, 2. A few days afterward, however, Kahane consented to take the oath without any addenda. 51. Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy (New York: 1969).


Essays


Demographic Transformations of American Jewry: Marriage and Mixed Marriage in the 1980s Sergio DellaPergola (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY) and Uziel O. Schmelz (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

INTRODUCTION: THE DEBATE The analysis of Jewish population trends in the United States has recently expanded beyond the professional interests of a few specialists in demography and sociology to become part of a general and spirited debate over the Jewish experience in America. Scholars in fields remote from demography as well as laymen, authors and journalists have become involved in the discussion of complex technical matters.1 Although the role of non-specialists has been important in popularizing the themes of a Jewish population debate that would otherwise be limited to a small group of researchers, their contribution has been, at times, marred by lack of familiarity with demographic techniques and quantitative research. What is more, the tone of the debate has gone well beyond neutral and objective academic and scientific discussion to embrace such terms as "pessimism" and "optimism" and even to the suggestion of an Israeli school versus an American school. An unfortunate and increasingly emotional tenor has begun to affect the debate on Jewish population; to say the least, this has contributed little to its quality. The core of this debate is the disagreement between those who argue that a number of erosive processes are currently at work in the demography of the Jewish family in the United States and Canada and those who believe that such a demographic erosion either does not exist or is only temporary and insignificant in the long run. According to the former point of view, 2 the combined effects of reduced and later marriages, very low fertility, increasing divorce, growing frequencies of out-marriage, relatively low proportions of children of mixed marriages raised as Jews and a negative balance between identificational inflows to, and outflows from, the Jewish 169

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Sergio DellaPergola and Uziel O. Schmelz

community create a serious population problem for American Jewry. Some of these processes simply reflect general population trends in more developed societies and in America in particular; others stem from the particular status of the Jews as a relatively small minority group whose socioeconomic stratification differs significantly from that of other religious-ethnic groups and of the total American population. But, whatever the cause, the cumulative consequences of these trends are aging of the population and, eventually, a negative balance both between Jewish births and Jewish deaths and between accessions and secessions—leading to Jewish population decline. The opposite view3 tends to emphasize the high level of socioeconomic and public achievement of Jews in the United States and the continuing importance of ethnicity in American society as a factor leading to community cohesiveness and continuity. Compared to these major positive forces, whatever demographic erosion processes exist are of minor significance. But, in any event, according to this view, no Jewish population erosion is occurring. High marriage propensities continue to characterize American Jews, fertility levels are sufficiently high for generation replacement, out-marriage is not as frequent as is claimed and, in the end, may even produce net numerical gains for the Jewish population. The aim of this essay is to present a fact-oriented review of several major issues relevant to the demography of Jewish family formation in America. Based on a substantial amount of quantitative evidence, attention is paid here to marriage and mixed marriage; other topics of cardinal importance such as fertility and population aging are only dealt with tangentially, being treated in greater detail elsewhere.4 It is recognized from the outset that the empirical bases of research are far from satisfactory and that, consequently, the analysis of the sociodemographic trends of American Jewry is complex, subject to a significant margin of error and open to conflicting interpretations.5 Data Resources and Limitations The analysis of U.S. Jewish demography is handicapped by a dearth of data sources and serious deficiencies in many of those that do exist. Jews cannot be distinguished as such in the decennial population censuses, in the Current Population Surveys conducted by the Bureau of the Census or in the regular vital statistics issued by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. The one countrywide Jewish sample survey, the National Jewish Population Study (NJPS) of 1970-71, was underutilized as a data source for analytical and policy purposes, though it did yield some important research. Today, however, its usefulness is mainly retrospective as a past bench mark. There are a number of national surveys in the United States from which interesting information about the Jews can be gauged, but the proportion of Jews in the total population (between 2 and 3 percent) results in very small Jewish subsamples that preclude more detailed cross-classifications and in-depth analysis. Recent information derives primarily from local Jewish surveys, of which dozens have been conducted over the last decade and a half. 6 Although these surveys have nominally covered over 70 percent of U.S. Jewry, their main purpose has been to serve the interests of local planning and communal services rather than to generate

Demographic Transformations of American Jewry

171

data suitable for demographic research and amenable to countrywide synthesis. Moreover, the topics of inquiry, concepts, definitions and classifications, sampling methodology and publication of results have not been coordinated, and there is a lack of quite basic demographic information. Studied comparatively, their data present a disconcerting array of local variations compounded by technical incompatibilities. Moreover, data collected on Jewish initiative are subject to biases because of the possible over-representation of the more Jewishly committed sections of the community. Nevertheless, these limitations do not seem to have deterred scholars from arriving at far-reaching generalizations about national processes based on the study of a certain specific local situation.7 Such an approach is of dubious validity given the documented differences in demographic, socioeconomic and Jewish characteristics of various regional and local Jewish communities deriving from both general and group-related variables. In this study an attempt will be made to address Jewish family patterns at the countrywide level through a combined use of several national and local sources and an assessment of the range of variation and central trends emerging from them. We also suggest that data on the Jewish population of Canada—where official decennial censuses and marriage statistics customarily distinguish the Jews as a separate religious and/or ethnic category—offer a reasonable proxy where comparable data on U.S. Jews do not exist. Indeed, comparisons of parallel information for the Jewish populations in the two countries show similar basic levels and trends. Canadian official statistics are continuous over time and quite free, moreover, from those limitations that affect most available data on U.S. Jews.8

MARRIAGE PATTERNS Background Marriage can be generally viewed as the resultant of three major groups of determinants: sociocultural, or the desirability of marriage; socioeconomic, or the feasibility of marriage; and demographic, or the availability of marriage partners.9 A brief overview of Jewish marriage patterns in the past with regard to each of these factors provides an appropriate background for the assessment of recent marriage trends among American Jews. The abundant evidence points to a number of conclusions. The sociocultural factors—the normative centrality of the family in traditional Jewish culture—generally produced a greater propensity to marry among the Jews than among other religio-ethnic groups. The socioeconomic factors—the peculiar occupational stratification of Jewish communities—produced differences in the frequency of marriage as affected by general socioeconomic change. Finally, the demographic factors—the relatively small size and segmented structure of the pool of potential Jewish marriage candidates—tended to lessen marriages among the Jews.10 From a comparative perspective, marriage patterns of Jews in the United States and Canada generally featured significantly lower rates of singlehood, accompanied

172


by lower ages at marriage, than among Jews in Europe.11 Moreover, after the Second World War and until recently, North American Jews tended to marry later but more frequently than did the general white population.12 In the United States, for example, according to the 1970-71 NJPS, the proportion never-married at ages 45 to 49 was 2.4 percent among Jewish women and 1.6 percent among Jewish men versus 5.2 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively, among all whites. This was consistent with the model of nearly universal marriage that applied to Jewish communities in a more distant past. Moreover, Jewish families were comparatively more stable, the rate of divorce being about one-half the level of total whites.13 Recent Jewish community surveys in the United States, however, have shown a slow but uninterrupted increase in rates of singlehood, especially among younger adults, which is in line with a significant decline in marriage frequencies among the general white population. By the mid-1980s the rate of marriage per one thousand single adults in the United States had reached an unprecedented low.14 Besides, a substantial increase in divorce has been recorded for the total population of the United States. Although divorce rates continue to be lower among the Jews than among the total population and in spite of a higher-than-average tendency to remarry among Jews with a terminated marriage, the proportions of currently divorced individuals and of one-parent households have rapidly increased in recent years.15 Unfortunately, with few exceptions,16 these changing Jewish family patterns have not been studied systematically. The basic questions of maintenance or abandonment of nearly universal marriage and of substantial family stability and the related question of choice of partner from within or outside the Jewish community—as well as their implications for other aspects of Jewish demography such as cohort replacement and population size—need clarification. Propensity to Marry A few examples of the findings available since the early 1970s on the proportion of never-married Jewish adults in different places are given in Table 1. Despite inconsistencies in age classification and in breakdown by gender in the original data, Table 1 clearly documents the recent increase in singlehood among U.S. Jews. The proportion single in age groups 25-34 increased twice or more—from a countrywide level of about 16 percent for males and 10 percent for females in 1970-71 to levels in the range of 30 to 45 percent among males and 17 to 33 percent among females—in several local surveys conducted between 1975 and 1985. Among persons in age groups 35-44, the proportion single in 1970-71 was about 4 percent for males and 2 percent for females; the corresponding figures in the more recent surveys were 4 to 10 percent among males and 3 to 7 percent among females. Clearly, Jewish singlehood rates in the United States have increased two or three times in fifteen years. Similar trends are clearly evident in the data from recent decennial Canadian censuses, which in 1971 reported substantially higher proportions of never-married Jews in all age groups over 25 than did the NJPS.17 If we focus only on the oldest age group, by 1981 the proportion never-married in the Canadian Jewish population


173

age group 45-54 had fallen somewhat to 3 percent among women, and to 6.3 percent among men. Nevertheless, when compared with 6.4 percent and 7.3 percent respectively, among the total population, the data indicate that comparatively higher marriage propensities continue to characterize the Jewish group at the end of the reproductive age.18 At the bottom end of the scale the opposite prevailed: among younger adults, relatively fewer Jews than total Canadians were ever-married. In 1981, for example, in the 25-34 age group, 80.3 percent of the Jewish women and 65.8 percent of the Jewish men were ever-married as against 84.4 percent and 76.6 percent, respectively, in the total population. The difference was even greater among the 20-24 age group: only 28.4 percent of Jewish women and 12.2 percent of Jewish men had already married, as compared with 49 percent and 28.2 percent, respectively, in the total population. The Canadian census figures indicate a general a general rise in the proportions of ever-married among Jewish women (aged 20 to 24) and young Jewish men (aged 25 to 34) from 1931 to 1961, followed subsequently by a sharp decline for both sexes. The drop among Jews is more marked than similar declines among the general Canadian population, so that overall the gap between Jews and others has increased. When the proportion of Canadian Jews already married at ages 20 to 24 in 1981 is compared with that observed from previous censuses, clear changes are evident. Among Jewish women that proportion was 25.8 percent in 1931, it increased to 32 percent in 1941, 57.7 percent in 1951 and 62 percent in 1961, and then declined to 44.9 percent in 1971 and 28.4 percent in 1981. The trend in Canada's total female population was similar, but the recent decline in younger marriages was much more marked among Jewish women. Among Jewish men aged 25 to 34, the proportions ever-married were 64 percent in 1931, 60.7 percent in 1941, 70.2 percent in 1951, 71.3 percent in 1961, and 72.8 percent in 1971, declining to 65.8 percent in 1981. Again, these percentages follow the same trend as those in the total male population, but they are systematically lower. Overall, the gap between the proportion married for Jewish and total males has increased continually between 1951 and 1981. This diminished nuptiality of younger adults since the early 1960s is open to two different interpretations: no basic change in the ultimate propensity to marry, but the postponement of marriage; a decline in the propensity to marry. Some clues as to the correct interpretation are to be found in Table 2. Decennial increases in the proportion ever-married by age can be computed for three ten-year periods between 1951 and 1981. The calculation assumes that the persons reported in the earlier of two successive censuses reappear—ten years older—in the next one.19 By summing up the increases in the proportions ever-married of all relevant age groups during an inter-censal interval we can estimate the percentage ever-married around age 50 within a hypothetical cohort passing through these ages. We shall refer to this measure as the period proportion ever-marrying (PEM). The PEM differed somewhat for men and women in Canada. Among women, PEM tended to decline over the years. It was exceptionally high during the 1950s, reaching values greater than 100 percent among both the Jewish and total populations. This incongruous but computationally possible finding was due to the very high marriage frequencies that characterized most age groups during the 1950s, as a

Table 1.

Percentage of Jews Never-married, by Age and Sex—United States and Canada, 1931-85 Females

Males Community Canada Total Total Total Total Total Total United Statesa Total (NJPS) Pittsburgh Boston Minneapolis St. Paul Washington Baltimore

Year

20-24

25-34

35-44

45-54

20-24

25-34

35-44

45-54

1931 1941 1951 1961 197! 1981

89.4 87.8 78.1 80.4 79.7 87.8

36.0 39.3 29.8 28.7 27.2 34.2

7.3 12.7 11.7 10.1 9.2 8.2

3.0 5.6 7.2 7.0 8.2 6.3

74.2 68.0 42.3 38.0 55.1 71.6

21.5 29.0 14.3 7.7 13.3 19.7

2.8 9.1 9.9 5.0 4.4 6.0

1.4 2.5 6.3 6.5 4.1 3.0

1970-71 1975 1975 1981 1981 1983 1985

78.3 95.3

16.0 36.2

3.9 6.0

1.6 3.9"

56.9 82.6

9.8 18.2

1.9 6.6

8.1 3.7 8.0 10.0

6.0 4.0 1.4 3.0s

2.4 6.5b 9.1e 2.8 3.0 2.5 2.0g

62..9"=

91.4 95.8 96.9f 96.9f

30.6 35.9 46.0 38.0

10.4d

2.1 e

80.0 72.7 90.9f 80.0f

54.,3c

17.5 17.2 33.0 27.0

8.0d

5.2 6.6 7.1 3.0

Both Sexes 20-24 Boston

Los Angeles Rochester Chicago Denver Nashville Miami Milwaukee Kansas City

1965 1975 1985 1967 1979 1980 1981 1981 1982 1982 1983 1985

25-29 42. Oh 55. 0h 63.0h 50.9 58.8 72.0c

95.0' 76. 5f 95.3i 70.7c 93. 7f

30-39

40-49

11.0

3.0 6.0 4.0 4.8 3.7

9.0

23.0

6.2 56.0j 39.8 41.9) 26.2k 25.0™

16.1 7.1d 15.0 15.5

2.8g

3.0 2.8 4.8

7.8 7.5' 13.2 5.0°

5.0 1.0s

Notes'. aOnly places with data for all Jewish individuals—as distinguished from respondents or heads of households—were included here. b f18-24 l35-49 i18-22 40 and over g j m c 18-29 45-64 23-29 -25-34 n d h k 30-44 21-29 20-34 35-44 e 45-59 Sources: CANADA: Statistics Canada, various censuses: UNITED STATES: NJPS data file, authors' processing; Morris Axelrod, Floyd Fowler and Arnold Gurin, A Community Survey for Long Range Planning—A Study of the Jewish Population of Greater Boston (Boston: 1967); Floyd J. Fowler, 1975 Community Survey—A Study of the Jewish Population of Greater Boston (Boston: 1977); Peter Friedman et al., Metropolitan Chicago Jewish Population 1981: Preliminary Tables (Chicago: 1982); Lois Geer, The Jewish Community of Greater Minneapolis 1981 Population Study (Minneapolis: 1981); Lois Geer, 198! Population Study of the St. Paul Jewish Community (St. Paul: 1981); Calvin Goldscheider, Jewish Continuity and Change: Emerging Patterns in America (Bloomington: 1985); Nancy Hendrix, A Demographic Study of the Jewish Community of Nashville and Middle Tennessee (Nashville: 1982); Sherry Israel, Boston's Jewish Community: The J985 CJP Demographic Survey (Boston: 1987); Bruce Phillips, "Los Angeles Jewry: A Demographic Portrait," American Jewish Year Book 86 (1986), 126-195; Bruce A. Phillips and Eleanore P. Judd, The Denver Jewish Population Study, 1981 (Denver: 1982); Bruce A. Phillips and Eve Weinberg, The Milwaukee Jewish Population: Report of a Survey (Chicago: 1984); Peter Regenstreif, The Jewish Population of Rochester New York (Monroe County) 1980 (Rochester: 1981); Alvin Rogal, Demographic Committee Report (Pittsburgh: 1977); Ira M. Sheskin, Population Study of the Greater Miami Jewish Community (Miami: 1982); Gary A. Tobin, Jewish Population Study of Greater Baltimore (Baltimore: 1986); Gary A. Tobin, A Demographic Study of the Jewish Community of Greater Kansas City—Executive Summary, Summer 1986 (Kansas City: 1986); Joseph Waksberg, Janet Greenblatt and Gary A. Tobin, A Demographic Study of the Jewish Community of Greater Washington, 1983 (Bethesda: 1984).

Table 2.

Decennial Increases in Percentage Ever-married Among Total and Jewish Populations, by Sex and Age—Canada, 1951-81 Total Population

Jews

Age

1951-61

1961-71

1971-81

1951-61

1961-71

1971-81

5-14 to 15-24 15-24 to 25-34 25-34 to 35-44 35-44 to 45-54 Period sum = PEMa

32.0 60.7 8.3 2.5 103.5

30.9 55.5 5.8 1.8 94.0

28.2 53.9 5.9 1.4 89.4

33.1 58.7 9.3 3.3 104.4

24.2 53.6 3.3 0.9 82.0

15.9 56.1 7.3 1.4 80.7

14.3 63.4 15.6 2.6 95.9

16.1

65.7 13.5 3.1 98.4

14.8 60.5 11.7 2.5 89.5

8.6 59.4 19.7 4.7 92.4

11.1 64.2 19.5 1.9 96.7

6.7 54.7

Females

Males 5-14 to 15-24 15-24 to 25-34 25-34 to 35-44 35-44 to 45-54 Period sum = PEMa

19.0 2.9 83.3

Notes'. a Percentage ever-marrying, assuming that age-specific increases in percentage ever-married during given period remain constant. Sources: Computed and adapted from Statistics Canada, various censuses; Jim Torczyner, The Jewish Family in Canada, 1981 (Montreal: 1984).


177

result of the postponement of marriages in the 1940s and the advancement by a few years of marriages that otherwise would have taken place during the 1960s. The intensity of this 1950s marriage boom was among women similar in the Jewish and general population. During the 1960s marriage propensities declined in each age group among both populations, especially at relatively older ages and among younger Jews. In the later 1960s it should be noted, the early baby boom cohorts of women—born soon after the Second World War—reached marriageable age. This produced a number of potentially marriageable women larger than the number of potentially marriageable—(i.e., slightly older) men. The impact of this squeeze was more significant for the Jewish women than for the total Canadian female population. The PEM fell considerably, to 94 percent among all Canadian women and to a much lower 82 percent level among Jewish women. The trend in women's nuptiality in the 1970s was mixed. On the one hand, marriage propensities at younger ages continued to decline. On the other hand, there were relatively more marriages by Jewish women at older ages, although only small increases were involved. Indeed, 7 percent of the respective Jewish women married between the ages 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 during the 1970s versus 3 percent during the 1960s. The more frequent older marriages were not sufficient, however, to compensate for the much reduced younger marriages, and the PEM, therefore, continued to decline slightly, to 89.4 percent among total women and to 80.7 percent among Jewish women. The overall declining trend in PEM appeared also for males, but the timing was different and the magnitude smaller. Male PEMs increased during the 1960s as compared to the 1950s. At least part of the increase can be attributed to the favorable position of men in the marriage market because of the large baby boom cohorts of women reaching marriageable ages. Facing a substantially expanding number of potential marriage mates, men were able to make their choice more easily and quickly. However, during the 1970s, the male PEM declined to 89.5 among all men and 83.3 among Jewish men, despite a spouse-supply situation that was mostly favorable to males. During the whole period studied here, the PEM was lower among Jewish males than among all Canadian males. The difference was smaller during the period of relatively greater male nuptiality of the 1960s, but it widened again somewhat during the 1970s. In this instance the fewer marriages at younger and intermediate ages were not compensated for in the 1970s by increased marriages at older ages and consequently, PEM declined. The data in Table 2 indicate that if the age-specific marriage rates observed among the Jewish population during the 1970s persisted, about 20 percent of the Jewish women and 17 percent of the men under 25 in 1981 would never marry. This would constitute a very substantial departure from universal marriage. By the same token, the data do not support the alternative interpretation that marriages are simply being postponed, with little or no effect on the proportion of a cohort who eventually marry. To the contrary, variations in marriage frequencies—even if they reflect the specific conditions of a certain period of time—seem to have quite permanent effects for the overall marriage history of a particular cohort. It must be noted, however, that this inference is influenced by the analytical

178


method used in Table 2, which combined for each period the experience of different cohorts. Among women, the diminished nuptiality of the 1970s led to increased proportions of single individuals in each age group in 1981. Applying a cohort approach and assuming that the marriage rates of the 1970s per 100 singles in each age group will remain unchanged in the 1980s, some increase in the overall frequency of maniages might be expected. The PEM for Jewish women could increase to 85 to 90 percent (depending on different assumptions). But even this figure is markedly lower than the proportion ever-married actually found among Jewish women aged 45 to 49 in 1981 (97 percent), which reflected the high marriage propensities of young adults during the 1950s. Among Jewish men, the persistence of the age-specific marriage rates of the 1970s during the 1980s would cause a further decline of the PEM to 75 to 80 percent (vs. an actual proportion of 94 percent in 1981). More refined measurements, including transition probability techniques, might improve the prediction of marriage trends among Jews. But at this stage it is clear that the recent pattern of reduced nuptiality is conducive to increased proportions of permanent singlehood among both Jewish men and women. The reduced frequency of marriage among younger adults—since the 1960s among women and since the 1970s also among men—has obviously produced a considerable increase in the average age at marriage. Later marriages have contributed to the overall decline in fertility that has occurred in America since the 1960s. Divorce A further demographic transformation that has considerably affected both general and Jewish populations in the United States is the continuing growth of divorce. Past studies have shown that the Jews tended to divorce less than the total population, and they tended to re-many more frequently after divorce. According to the NJPS,20 1.4 percent of Jewish males and 3.4 percent of Jewish females aged 35 to 44 were currently divorced in 1970-71. The proportions of Jews ever-divorced at the same ages were higher—11.8 percent among males and 12.9 percent among females—and yet substantially lower than among the total U.S. whites, where the corresponding figures were 21.1 percent among males and 25.9 percent among females. The greater tendency of Jews toward family life was also shown by the higher percentages of re-married individuals among those with terminated marriages. Among ever-divorced Jews aged 35 to 44, 82.3 percent of males and 68.4 percent of females had married again, compared with 75.6 percent and 64.6 percent, respectively, among the total white population. Some of the evidence on divorce from the more recent Jewish community surveys is reported in Table 3. In most places surveyed during the first half of the 1980s, between 8 percent and 16 percent of adults in their thirties and early forties were currently divorcees—an increase of three to six times over the levels in the early 1970s. In Canada, where the 1971 frequencies of Jewish divorcees were slightly lower than those of the NJPS, there has also been a visible increase. The proportion divorced or separated among Jews of both sexes aged 35 to 44 rose from 3.1 percent in 1971 to 11.1 percent in 1981.21 The comparable figures for the total Canadian

179


Table 3.

Percentage of Jews Currently Divorced or Separated, by Age and Sex— United States and Canada, 1965-85 Females

Males Year

20-24

25-34

35-44

45-54

20-24

25-34

35-44

45-54

1971

0.3

1.9

2.9

2.4

0.8

3.1

3.3

2.2

1970-71 1975 1975 1981 1981 1983 1985

0.4 1.2

6.5 3.2

1.4 1.2

1.1 1.1b

0.9 0.0

2.8 2.4

3.4 2.5

9.0 6.0 14.3 9.0

11.4= 8.1 3.2 8.4 4.0s

0.0 0.0 0.0f 3.0f

4.8 3.3b .2= 8.4 8.0 15.2 5.0s

Community Canada Total United States Total (NJPS) Pittsburgh Boston Minneapolis St. Paul Washington Baltimore

a

6.3"

2.1* 0.0 0.0 0.0f 0.0f

2.6 1.0 4.5 3.0

1.8C 6.7 2.8 7.8 6.0

4.8d

13.3 6.6 8.5 8.0

Both Sexes 20-24 Boston

Los Angeles Rochester Chicago Denver Nashville Miami Milwaukee Kansas City

1965 1975 1985 1967 1979 1980 1981 1981 1982 1982 1983 1985

25-29

30-39

40-49

4.0i 6.0 3.5J

1.0 3.0 8.0 3.9 12.6 5.9d 10.0 10.6 7.8

0.0 2.0 12.0 6.8 13.6 2.8s 10.0 21.3 7.7

4.0™

9.6 13.0"

0.0b 2.0h 0.0h 5.5 7.2 C

0.0i 0.0f 0.0i 1.0f

1.4C

11. 3k

16.21

7.6 6.0s

Notes: aOnly places with data for all Jewish individuals—as distinguished from respondents or heads of households—were included here. b 1 40 and over flg-24 '18-22 35-49 j c m 18-29 845-64 23-29 25-34 d h k n 30-44 21-29 20-34 35-44 e 45-59 Sources: See Table 1.

180


population were 1.9 percent in 1971 and 9.2 percent in 1981—an indication that the past difference between Jews and non-Jews with regard to divorce and remarriage may be fading away. Further analyses of the frequency of terminated marriages among selected subsections of the Jewish population in Greater New York around 1981 point to striking internal variations.22 The proportion ever-divorced among Jews aged 35 to 54 ranged from a low of 6.4 percent among those with high ritual observance to a high of 51.3 percent among those with low ritual observance. The frequency of divorce was significantly associated with several other indicators of Jewishness—in terms of both parental background and personal behavior and attitudes. Levels of marital instability among the least identified sections of the Jewish population seem, therefore, to have become equal to those of the U.S. total white population, among which the cumulative rate of divorce has been estimated at 50 percent and over for recent marriage cohorts.23 On the other hand, a wide gulf remains between the family behavior of the more observant and closely knit sections of the Jewish population and the majority of Americans. Although the available data are still partial and fragmentary, the continuous growth in the percentages of currently divorced Jews—shown by most of the recent community surveys—almost certainly reflects both more frequent divorces among the ever-married and less frequent re-marriages among the ever-divorced. The trend has significant effects for Jewish population composition and creates new needs from the point of view of Jewish communal services, especially with regard to the rapid increase of one-parent households. MIXED MARRIAGE PATTERNS Background The frequency and demographic consequences of out-marriage constitute a central theme in the debate about the implications of present population trends for the future of American Jewry. The frequency of out-marriage can be posited as one of the most symptomatic sociodemographic indicators of group cohesion. It is thus of interest both at a descriptive level, as a measure of group cohesion, or for the comparison between several groups within the same population; and, at a more theoretical level, as a criterion for assessing the nature of interaction between different religio-ethnic groups in the context of changing social norms and social structure. The recent social science literature on American Jewry has not arrived at a consensus on the frequency of out-marriage and/or mixed marriage in recent years. Neither is there agreement as to the significance of these observed trends for Jewish continuity. Although the dispute arises, in part, from competing theoretical frameworks—the hypotheses of assimilation, pluralism and transformation24—it is largely due to fragmentary and often unclear statistical documentation. What is more, the definitions of basic concepts adopted in different studies are often inconsistent and, at times, obscure, which obviously hinders the comparability of find-

181


ings and their interpretation. There are also methodological lacunae and biases. Most of the data now available on U.S. Jewry derive from Jewish community surveys that often do not fully cover non-affiliated or marginal Jewish households and are, therefore, likely to underestimate the actual frequency of out-marriage. Finally, findings from such surveys can be affected by local or regional factors that may not reflect countrywide trends. A further complicating feature of the debate is that comparatively little effort has been made to define clearly the types of marriages to which cited frequencies refer. In this discussion, we shall use the term "out-marriage" to refer to all weddings in which one of the spouses was not born Jewish or was not Jewish at the time the two partners first met. Where the non-Jewish partner does not change his or her original identification, the term "mixed marriage" will be employed. In case of conversion, the term "conversionary marriage" has been adopted.25 Much of the uncertainty in the current understanding of levels of out-marriage and mixed marriage is due to the fact that at least eight different percentages can be computed from the same survey data. Such percentages may relate, respectively, to: married/marry ing Jewish individuals versus couples with at least one Jewish spouse; all marriages (couples) in a given population versus marriages (weddings) performed in recent years only; and marriages by religion of spouses at birth (or when they first met) versus marriages by religion at the time of survey (i.e., after allowing for cases of conversion). The wide range of percentages that can be obtained in the United States according to different combinations of measurement criteria is illustrated by the results of the 1970-71 NJPS:26 Percentage of Out-marriage (by religion at birth) Marriages

All Recent (1965-71)

Percentage of Mixed Marriage (by religion at time of survey)

Individuals

Couples

Individuals

Couples

8.1

15.0

6.8

12.5

29.2

45.1

22.5

34.8

On the face of these data, it is legitimate to quote the NJPS as showing out-marriage rates as low as 6.8 percent or as high as 45.1 percent. To avoid misleading or haphazard practices, clear explanation and justification of the type of rate used should be provided. In our present analysis, we focus on the frequency of Jewish individuals recently contracting a mixed marriage, that is, on the percentage of Jews with a nonconverted non-Jewish-born spouse among recent marriage cohorts or younger age groups (see bold figure in the NJPS table). Frequency of Mixed Marriage Besides the data from the March 1957 Current Population Report, 27 the bulk of countrywide information on mixed marriage comes from the 1970-71 NJPS. For

182


reasons that we have detailed elsewhere, early figures from the NJPS were inconsistent and not free of error. Utilizing a data-file cleaning procedure, we obtained a revised series of out-marriage rates.28 This revealed that nationally the percentage of Jewish individuals married to a non-Jewish-born partner who had not converted, regardless of year of marriage, grew from 4 percent in 1957 to 1 percent in 1970-71 (see Tables 4 and 5). Individual rates of mixed marriage among U.S. Jewry were very low until the 1950s: less than 2 percent during the first quarter of this century, 3 to 5 percent during the 1930s and 1940s and 5 percent during the 1950s. The percentage doubled to a still relatively modest level of 10 percent in 1960-64, and it increased again by twice or more to 22.5 percent in 1965-71. These NJPS findings indicate a discontinuity in the mixed marriage patterns after 1965 owing to one or more of a number of factors. The third generation of American Jews—although becoming structurally more assimilated into American society—was coming of age and marrying. College studies were becoming almost universal among the Jews, leading to intensified patterns of interaction between young Jews and non-Jews. The trend to increasing frequency of mixed marriage is confirmed by repeated observation of certain communities over time (see the data for Boston, Los Angeles and Kansas City in Table 4). However, the salient finding from the more recent surveys is the enormous local variation that prevails in the United States (see Table 4). Among the younger age groups and more recent marriage cohorts surveyed during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the proportion of Jewish spouses with a nonconverted non-Jewish partner ranged between 11 percent in New York29 and 61 percent in Denver.30 It also appears that the NJPS estimates are quite close to the central values of ranges obtained from these recent community surveys for comparable years of marriage or ages of spouses. Tables 4 and 5 clearly indicate that the rate of mixed marriage has continued to increase throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Jewish women's heterogamy has increased more significantly than that of Jewish men and the previous clear and consistent sex differential has tended to narrow.31 It can be assumed that this, at least in part, reflects a temporary imbalance between the numbers of potential Jewish grooms and brides in the late 1960s and during the 1970s—namely, the excess of young Jewish women belonging to large baby boom cohorts over the smaller numbers of males born a few years earlier. The overall religious composition of couples in Table 4 exhibits several other interesting features. A relatively large variation of the frequency of mixed marriage exists between, as well as within, major metropolitan areas. In the Greater New York area, very low levels of mixed marriage characterize the more densely Jewish boroughs and suburbs, whereas higher rates appear in some of the urban and suburban counties where the Jewish population has significantly relocated in recent years.32 With regard to all existing marriages, the proportion of Jewish individuals with currently non-Jewish spouses ranged between 3 to 5 percent in Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau County—probably the lowest levels in the United States—to about 12 percent in Manhattan and Suffolk County—a level found in several other U.S. cities. Frequencies of mixed marriage among children of respondents in Kansas City in 197633 were much higher than among the respondents themselves in the


183

same survey—and almost identical to those of the respondents in a more recent study of the same community.34 In all the survey data published so far, the highest percentages of currently mixed couples among all existing households were in Seattle.35 There seems to be a clear rise in the frequency of mixed marriages as one moves from the northeastern United States to the South and West—controlling for size of community. These findings confirm the significant relationships between age, generation, geographic mobility and frequency of mixed marriage pointed out in earlier studies of mixed marriage among American Jews.36 Once again, Canadian data lend support to these patterns and trends. In Canada, too, the striking regional differentials are consistent with those observed in the United States. In 1981 the proportion of Jews in mixed families37 ranged between relatively low levels of 6 percent in Montreal; 8 percent in Toronto and Winnipeg; 14 to 16 percent in Ottawa, Hamilton, Calgary and Edmonton; 19 percent in Vancouver (the fourth largest community in Canada); and 25 percent in the small communities in the North Atlantic Maritime Provinces.38 The current levels of mixed marriage among recently married Jews were much higher. When comparisons could be made for communities of similar size and regional location— particularly for the east-west continuum—percentages of mixed marriage were generally higher in the United States than in Canada. In the past the frequency of mixed marriage among recently formed couples was quite similar for Jews in the United States and Canada. A comparison of Canadian official marriage statistics with the NJPS data, however, suggests that the recent increase began earlier and was more marked in the United States. The individual percentages of mixed marriage in Canada moved from 3 percent during the 1930s to 5 percent in the late 1940s, 7 percent in the 1950s, 9 percent in 1961-65, 12 percent in 1966-70, 19 percent in 1971-75, and 25 percent in the late 1970s. By 1980-82, excluding the province of Quebec, 28 percent of Jewish spouses in Canada married a non-Jewish partner.39 As noted earlier, a somewhat lower mixed marriage level is documented for Montreal from census data of existing couples;40 therefore, the Canadian countrywide average of mixed weddings at the outset of the 1980s can be put at around 25 percent. Data provided by Statistics Canada—excluding the provinces of Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta—confirm an individual level of mixed marriage of about 25 percent in 1985.41 Given the lower than average frequency of mixed marriages in Quebec and the past higher levels for Alberta and especially British Columbia, the latter figure cannot be far from the average for the entire country. A countrywide estimate of levels of mixed marriage for the United States can be arrived at by computing an average, weighted according to Jewish population size that (1) takes into account the empirically ascertained proportions of mixed marriage in the numerous localities investigated and (2) assigns other localities to categories of presumed intensity in the level of mixed marriage in accord with geographic region and Jewish community size. An exercise of this kind—carried out by Silberman42—gave an average of between 22 and 27 percent. In addition to some serious inconsistencies in the data included,43 the consistently higher figures in several later community reports suggest that Silberman's calculations have underestimated the levels. Taking more recent surveys into consideration, the individual

Table 4.

Percentage of Jews with Currently Non-Jewish Spouse, by Year of Marriage/Age—United States and Canada, 1950-8 Percentage of Jews in Current Mixed Marriages Couples

Community

Year

Total8

Individuals, by Year of Marriage Total" b

Canada United States

1981

18"

Total (CPS) Total (NJPS)

1957 1970-71

7.6

4

12.5

7

Seattle Oklahoma City Rochester New York Brooklyn Queens The Bronx Staten Island Manhattan Nassau County Westchester County Suffolk County St. Louis Minneapolis St. Paul Atlanta Kansas City Bostond Metro West, N.J.

1978 1980 1980 1981

1981 1981

1981

1984 1985 1985 1986

44 15 11 10 6 7 9 17 19 5 11 20 13 18 11 20 31 24 12

10

1980-84

1975-79

c

1970-74

c

28

1965-69

C

25

1960-64

c

19

C

12

22.5

1955-59

1950-54

C

9

8

6c

10

5

4

28 8 6 6

11

9

4

3 4

5 9 11 3

6

12 7 10

25d

19d

6d

6

12

21 14

7

46 29

26 29

20

27

10

11 5

0

Individuals, by Age a

Total Boston Kansas City Respondents Childrenf Los Angeles Cleveland Chicago Denver Miamid Milwaukee Phoenix Washington, D.C. Philadelphia Pittsburgh Respondents Childrenn Richmond Baltimored

1965 1975 1976

1967 1979 1980 1981 1981 1982 1983 1983 1983 1983-84 1984

1984 1985

18-29

30-39

40-49

50-59

11 13

4

10

4 12

2

3g 10g

2h 13h

7 10m 8 4 6 6

7 11

4 6

7 31 10 19

4 18 5 12

18

11

33 24

17 30

9 18

16 61

13 19 18 32

10 19 24

5 11 14

25 22

15 12

28k 34

20 17 211 23

7 14 8 8 13i 9 14 14s 13

10 26

5 15

29

33 22

20 12

44 24

20 29 23

6 21 12

6e 27e

22e 28 40

2

8 5

4 7

8J

6

Notes'. aA simple arithmetical relationship exists between the percentages of mixed marriage for couples and for individuals within the same population, assuming the number of spouses of each sex is roughly the same. When only one type of percentage was available from a survey report, we computed the other one as well. b k 1981 census (all countries). s35-44. 18-24. c h Official vital statistics. Quebec Province not included. 45 and over. '25-34. d Including persons converted to Judaism. 135-54. m45-64. n = 18-34. .j55 and over. Pittsburgh residents. f Regardless of place of residence.

(continued)

Table 4.

(Continued)

Sources: CANADA: Statistics Canada, 1981 Census of Canada (Ottawa: 1983); Statistics Canada, unpublished tabulations provided to the authors (Ottawa: 1987); Jim Torczyner, The Jewish Family in Canada, 1981 (Montreal: 1984): UNITED STATES: U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Religion Reported by the Civilian Population of the United States: March 1957," Current Population Reports, ser. P-20, n. 79 (Washington, D.C.: 1958); Uziei O. Schmelz and Sergio DellaPergola, "The Demographic Consequences of U.S. Jewish Population Trends," American Jewish Year Book 83 (1983), 141-187; Morris Axelrod, Floyd Fowler and Arnold Gurin, A Community Survey for Long Range Planning—A Study of the Jewish Population of Greater Boston (Boston: 1967); Sarah Caldweli, Demographic Profile and Community Survey (Oklahoma City: 1982); Floyd j. Fowler, .7975 Community Survey—A Study of the Jewish Population of Greater Boston (Boston: 1977); Peter Friedman et al., Metropolitan Chicago Jewish Population 1981: Preliminary Tables (Chicago: 1982); Lois Geer, The Jewish Community of Greater Minneapolis 1981 Population Study (Minneapolis: 1981); Lois Geer, 1981 Population Study of the St. Paul Jewish Community (St. Paul: 1981); Sherry Israel, Boston's Jewish Community: The 1985 CJP Demographic Survey (Boston: 1987); Albert Mayer, The Jewish Population Study of the Greater Kansas City Area (Kansas City: 1977); James McCann and Debra Friedman, A Study of the Jewish Community in the Greater Seattle Area (Seattle: 1979); Bruce A. Phillips, "Los Angeles Jewry: A Demographic Portrait," American Jewish Year Book 86 (9186), 126-195; Bruce A. Phillips and William S. Aron, The Greater Phoenix Jewish Population Study 1983-84 (Phoenix: 1984); Bruce A. Phillips and Eleanore P. Judd, The Denver Jewish Population Study, 1981 (Denver: 1982); Bruce A. Phillips and Eve Weinberg, The Milwaukee Jewish Population: Report of a Survey (Chicago: 1984); Peter Regenstreif, The Jewish Population of Rochester New York (Monroe County) 1980 (Rochester: 1981); Paul Ritterband and Steven M. Cohen, "The Social Characteristics of the New York Area Jewish Community, 1981" American Jewish Year Book 84 (1984), 128-161; Ann Schorr, Survey of Cleveland Jewish Population, 1981 (Cleveland: 1982); Ann Schorr, Pittsburgh Jewish Population Data, 1984 (Pittsburgh: 1984); Ann Schorr, Demographic Survey of the Jewish Community of Richmond (Richmond: 1984); Ira M. Sheskin, Population Study of the Greater Miami Jewish Community (Miami: 1982); Gary A. Tobin, A Demographic and Attitudinal Study of the Jewish Community of St. Louis (St. Louis: 1982); Gary A. Tobin, Jewi sh Population Study of Greater Baltimore (Baltimore: 1986); Gary A. Tobin, A Demographic Study of the Jewish Community of Greater Kansas City—Executive Summary, Summer 1986 (Kansas City: 1986); Gary A. Tobin, Jewish Population Survey of Metro West, New Jersey (personal communication to the authors, 1987); Joseph Waksberg, Janet Greenblatt and Gary A. Tobin, A Demographic Study of the Jevjish Community of Greater Washington, 1983 (Bethesda: 1984); jay Weinstein, Metropolitan Atlanta Jewish Population Study: Summary of Main Findings (Atlanta: 1985); William L. Yancey and Ira Goldstein, The Jewish Population of the Greater Philadelphia Area (Philadelphia: 1984).

187

Demographic Transformations of American Jewry Table 5.

Percentage of Jews Out-marrying and Percentage of Spouses Converting to Judaism, by Year of Marriage/Age—United States, 1900-85 Percentage Married with Spouse:

Year of Survey and Year of Marriage/ Age at Survey

Percentage Converted to Judaism Out of All NonJewish-Born Spouses

Non-Jewish at Birth

Non-Jewish at Survey

1.7 3.0 4.9 5.8

29.2

1.4 2.6 4.6 5.4 7.4 22.5

23

23-27 35-39

18-22 28-32

19-23 16-20

NJPS National Survey, 1970-71, by Year of Marriage

1900-24 1925-34 1935-44 1945-54 1955-64 1965-71 Local Community Surveys, 1972-85, by Age at Surveya 30-39 18-29

9.1

18 15 7 8

19

Note: aFigures in this part of the table are central values in the observed ran;ge of local survey results. Sources: See Table 4.

proportion of mixed marriages in the United States is currently between 28 and 32 percent, or an average of about 30 percent. This, it will be recalled, is the estimated proportion of Jewish individuals of either sex currently marrying a non-Jewish-born spouse who does not convert to Judaism. It corresponds to about 45 percent of all newly formed couples or households with at least one Jewish partner. Although these U.S. estimates entail some margin of error, the actual couple rate of mixed marriage for Canada was 39 percent in 1985 (without Quebec, British Columbia or Alberta) against 31 percent in 197175 and 17 percent in 1961-65.44 These estimates indicate clearly the considerable extent of the increase in mixed marriages in the United States and Canada over the past twenty years. The pace of this diffusional process since the mid-1960s demands careful analysis and explanation. The substantial proportion of Jewish children reared in mixed families has implications for the religious identification and upbringing of the next generation that are as yet unassessed (discussed later). Moreover, these are the current proportions of mixed marriage only; the total proportions of out-marriage, including conversions in either direction, must be still greater. In spite of this recent increase, Jewish out-marriage is comparatively infrequent in the context of American society. Comprehensive countrywide data such as the U.S. 1957 Current Population Report and the more recent Canadian censuses show that the proportion of mixed households is generally lower among Jews than among

188


other religious or ethnic groups, especially after controlling for the size of the group. However, the general frequency of heterogamy has continually increased in North America.45 A study of ancestry origin conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census in 1979 showed a steady increase, by age, in the frequency of persons reporting multiple ancestry. Frequencies increased from 44 percent among persons aged 65 or more to 67 percent among those below 18; among persons belonging to at least the third generation in the United States, the respective percentages were 59 and 75 percent.46 Although the figures reflect, even if indirectly, the rising general trend of inter-ethnic marriages, they do not relate to religion. Inter-religious heterogamy may, in fact, be somewhat less frequent, whereas inter-racial heterogamy in America is not very frequent at all. In any event, the convergence among different groups with a common European background—including the Jews—continues to be substantial. Jewish levels of out-marriage may, on current trends, be expected to increase. The influence of three sociodemographic factors till now connected with increased heterogamy is likely to be maintained in the foreseeable future. The first is countrywide population redistribution in the United States, particularly from the Northeast to the South and West, that is consistently associated with higher regional outmarriage rates—other things such as Jewish community size being equal.47 Further Jewish population redistribution toward the southern and western regions can therefore be expected to be associated with a continuing rise in countrywide average levels of out-marriage. The second factor concerns the relationship between marital stability and choice of partner. Although out-marriages have usually been found to be comparatively less stable than in-marriages, divorcees are more likely to be involved in out-marriage in the re-marriages that frequently follow a divorce—as compared to persons marrying for the first time.48 Divorce has been comparatively rarer among Jews than among the general population; among other things, this means that its potential for increase is far from exhausted. The third factor is related to the continuation of gender imbalances in the marriage market. These, as we have seen, are determined by changes in natality levels that occurred twenty to thirty years earlier. After the excess female spouse supply of the late 1960s and 1970s, from the 1980s onward, we may expect again an excess of unmarried males over slightly younger females. From the perspective of a given sub-population within a total national population—as is the case with North American Jewry—a deficiency of potential spouses of a given sex within that sub-population may stimulate the quest for partners from outside.49 The cultural determinants of family formation and choice of partner are also highly relevant. The social norms that formerly underpinned Jewish endogamy are now maintained less in the Jewish community than in the past. The social acceptability of out-marriage has substantially increased, especially among the young generation of Jews.50 Although the percentage of persons with an indifferent or even positive attitude toward out-marriage has till now generally been much higher than the proportion who eventually out-marry, heightened acceptability of outmarriage among younger Jews indicates clearly that the upper boundary in the frequency of mixed marriage has not yet been reached.


189

Spouses and Children of Out-Marriages The frequency of marriage and the choice of spouse do not affect population size directly, but they do so as a result of three other factors: the possible addition or loss of adults through identificational changes because of out-marriage, the different fertility levels of homogamous versus heterogamous couples and the possible demographic gains or losses arising from the identification choice made by, or for, children of mixed marriages. The impact of these factors on American Jewry in recent years is perhaps the most difficult and controversial aspect of the current debate. Identificational changes among partners of out-marriages may occur both before and after the wedding. When they grow up, children of out-marriages may change the identification originally decided on by their parents. The analytical context of the problem encompasses the interactions within both the nuclear family and the extended families of the respective spouses. Ideally, the effects of out-marriage on the identification and demographic behavior of the adults and their children should be investigated in a longitudinal study with periodic follow-up. At least integrated data files should be constructed by linking the records of the spouses and children in out-married households in any given survey. Conventional, cross-sectional data on individuals alone, collected by means of typical Jewish community surveys are not capable of assessing correctly the effects of out-marriage. Some such surveys, moreover, have virtually overlooked those households in which the out-married Jewish spouse has converted/row Judaism. Silberman's implicit claim51—based on Jewish survey data and on impressionistic evidence—that conversion occurs only to Judaism is wrong, both methodologically and substantively. Nevertheless, despite the biased and inadequate nature of most of the available data on spouses and children of out-marriages, a brief overview of some relevant findings can be attempted. One problem concerns the frequency of conversion to Judaism52 in the context of family formation. The absolute number of individuals who were not born Jewish and who later identified as Jews at the time of a given survey has increased substantially since the 1950s. According to the NJPS data, the proportion of non-Jewish-born wives who were reported as Jews in 1970-71 increased from 12 percent among those married in 1945-54 to 28 percent among the 1955-64 marriage cohort. This clearly reflects an actual increase in these wives' propensity to convert to Judaism at a time when the proportion of out-marriages was slowly growing.53 However, a slight decrease in the conversion of wives—to 26 percent—occurred among the 1965-71 out-marriages, which themselves represented a much greater proportion of new marriages with at least one Jewish partner than had been the case in any previous cohort. Thus, although the absolute number of conversions had increased, the propensity to convert had not—and may even have declined. In both instances the proportion of non-Jewish-born husbands converting to Judaism was extremely small. More recent community surveys consistently indicate that only a minority of the spouses of out-married Jews report their religious affiliation to be Jewish at the time

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of the interview. Among the younger non-Jewish-born spouses, aged 18 to 29 and 30 to 39 at the time of surveys between 1972 and 1985, the proportion embracing Judaism ranged between 7 and 42 percent, depending on the localities reported in Table 4.54 The central values of this substantial range were 19 to 23 percent among the 30-39 age group, and 16 to 20 percent among the 18-29 age groups (see Table 5). The NJPS finding of relatively fewer conversions along with more out-marriages is therefore confirmed by the latest batch of Jewish community studies. The relevance of this finding lies in its connection with the substantial differences between conversionary and mixed households in the degree of Jewishness. Evidence from the NJPS,55 local community surveys56 and specially designed surveys of out-married couples57 shows that the Jewishness of conversionary households, as measured by a variety of attitudinal and behavioral indicators, does not differ much from the average of in-married households and is, in fact, stronger than that of the least Jewishly identified among the latter. Mixed households, on the other hand, display much weaker patterns of Jewishness. Given the declining tendency of the non-Jewish-born spouses to convert to Judaism, mixed households now constitute the vast majority of Jewish out-marriages. A related issue, requiring systematic investigation, are the personal feelings of Jewish identity and communal participation of the newly converted. Exploratory research points to the complexity and ambivalence of the psycho-social transition involved in conversion, which in some cases may be long-lasting or even remain unresolved.58 The balance between personal feelings of belonging to a Jewish community, on the one hand, and of community acceptance, on the other, is likely to play an important role in shaping a convert's Jewish identity. This, in turn, may significantly affect the patterns of family life and transmission of Jewish identity to the next generation within conversionary marriages (discussed later). The NJPS yielded the most systematic information to date on the respective fertility levels of Jewish in-marriages and out-marriages and on the levels of and relationships between demographic and identificational variables,59 unmatched by any subsequent local survey. Its data in this regard are still relevant today. The NJPS found first, that in 1970-71 in most marriage cohorts, the fertility of outmarried couples was much lower than that of homogamous Jewish couples, regardless of the religion of the children. The average difference in the number of children ever-born was 24 percent. This difference can be attributed partly to the later age at marriage and higher educational level of the out-married, both of which are generally associated with lower fertility. Deliberate childlessness or reduction in the number of children among couples apprehensive that the upbringing of children might be a source of conflict may also have been a factor. Second, the proportion of Jewish children among all children of out-married couples can be compared with a hypothetical equal split between the two parental identifications. If all NJPS out-marriages are considered together, this factor had caused only a minor loss by 1970-71: 49 percent of all children of the reported outmarried couples were defined as Jews by their parents. Among currently mixed couples, the proportion of Jewish children was 44 percent. However, among couples married in 1965—71, only 25 percent of the children of all out-marriages and 15 percent of the children of mixed marriages were defined as Jews. In consequence of


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this new trend, about 25 percent of all children aged 0 to 4 in the enlarged Jewish population (including the non-Jewish household members) were not identified as Jews in 1970-71. Third, on the whole, when the influences of differential fertility and of the identification of children are combined, the average number of Jewish children (according to parents' definition) per Jewish parent was 26 percent lower in outmarriages than in in-marriages. Because at that time only 14 percent of total reported couples with at least one Jewish partner were out-married, the consequent diminution in fertility of the entire U.S. Jewish population amounted to no more than 4 percent. Although this effect was only marginally negative overall—and had even been moderately positive for one of the earlier marriage cohorts—the last NJPS marriage cohort (1965-71) recorded a net Jewish fertility loss of 15 percent as a result of out-marriage. Fourth, as measured by the NJPS, the reported religious identification of the children of out-marriages varied in relation to the conversion status of the nonJewish-born spouse. The proportion Jewish among all children of out-married couples was 94 percent if the mother had converted to Judaism, 86 percent if the mother was Jewish and the father was not and 17 percent60 if only the father was Jewish. The proportion of Jewish children was 87 percent if the mother indicated preference for one of the three major Jewish denominations (Orthodox, Conservative or Reform); 22 percent if the mother indicated another preference or none at all, with most non-converted mothers in the last category. A few more recent studies provide comparable data to bring the picture up-todate. In New York in 198161 where the proportion of mixed marriages—11 percent—stood at the low end of the national range during the late 1970s, less than one out of four non-Jewish-born spouses converted to Judaism. The proportion of children of mixed marriages who were raised as Jews was 73 percent if the mother was Jewish and 35 percent if the father was. This replicates the NJPS pattern. In America the majority of children of mixed marriages are identified with the mother's group of origin.62 However, because of the more rapid increase of mixed marriage among Jewish women than among men in recent years, the distribution of mixed couples by the sex of the Jewish spouse was more evenly balanced in New York in 1981 than found by the NJPS in 1970-71. This largely explains why the overall proportion of children of mixed couples raised as Jews was greater in New York (53 percent) than in the NJPS (44 percent). The 1985 study of the Jewish community in Baltimore63 paints a picture substantially similar to that of New York. In households with a non-Jewish-born spouse (including converts), 54 percent of the children under 18 were identified as Jewish, 4 percent had more than one religion, 24 percent other religions and 18 percent none.64 In Chicago in 1981, on the other hand, 40 percent of all children of mixed couples were identified as Jews, whereas an additional 12 percent were raised both as Jews and members of another religion.65 In Kansas City in 1985—where the proportion of mixed marriages was among the highest of the recently surveyed communities—38 percent of the children of currently mixed marriages were Jewish.66 Another study, conducted in Philadelphia in 1983-84,67 provides a more in-

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depth examination of the relationship between the religious composition of respondent couples and of their parents. Whereas 99 percent of the respondents born to a Jewish couple were raised as Jews themselves, only 59 percent were if the parental marriage was mixed. In the respondent couples, the proportion of Jews married to a non-converted non-Jewish spouse was 11 percent if they were children of in-marriages but 38 percent if their parents' marriage, too, had been mixed. Adding the converted spouses in the respondent couples makes the difference in the proportion of out-married Jews even more striking: 12 percent were out-married if the parents were in-married, compared with 65 percent out-married if the parents had been a mixed couple. The inter-generational relationship between out-marriage and children's Jewishness can be extended one stage further to the children of current mixed marriages among whom only 31 percent were raised as Jews compared with 83 percent among conversionary marriages and 97 percent of the children of two Jewish spouses. If the parents of the Jewish respondent in a current mixed marriage were in-married, 37 percent of his or her children were Jewish, but if the parental marriage had been mixed, the Jewish proportion of children reported in Philadelphia was nil. Again, children of respondents in mixed marriage were more often Jewish if the mother was Jewish (40 percent) than if the father was (22 percent).68 On the basis of the comparison between the New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia and Kansas City findings, it seems reasonable to infer that in general an inverse relationship exists between the frequency of mixed marriage and the proportion Jewish among the respective children. The greater the degree of mixed marriage, the fewer the number of children who are raised as Jews. The predominant indication of the recent surveys so far analyzed is that less than one-half of the children of mixed marriage are Jewish. Most children of conversionary marriages are raised as Jews, but conversionary marriages constitute a minority of all outmarriages. The overall identificational balance of the children of out-marriage points to losses for the Jewish side. The more recent Jewish community studies also point to a diminishing difference between the patterns of Jewishness of the in- and out-married couples. As outmarriages have become more frequent, heterogamous and homogamous couples have tended to become increasingly similar. This reflects both a somewhat greater diffusion of Jewish rituals and other specific behaviors among out-married couples and an overall decline of Jewishness among the in-married. Much greater social acceptance of out-marriage69—once stigmatized in the Jewish community as a form of social deviance70—must be conducive to less friction with relatives and greater self-esteem for the out-married. Improved attitudes toward the out-married may have beneficial effects for their relationship with the Jewish part of the family and with the Jewish community in general. Whether this, by itself, guarantees transmission of Jewish identity to the coming generations is a matter for further scrutiny. In fact, investigation of the characteristics, attitudes, behaviors and relational networks of the children of out-marriages points to a pattern that, on balance, seems negative for the Jewish group. In a specific eight-city study of out-married families and their offspring, as expected, many more children of conversionary marriages were Jewish—and participated in Jewish life—than children of mixed marriages.71


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Eighty-four percent of the former, in contrast to only 24 percent of the latter, considered themselves Jewish. More significant, when the prevalence of Jewish or non-Jewish religious practices (synagogue and/or church attendance, major holidays) was compared, both types were often adhered to by the same individuals. Jewish rituals prevailed among a majority of children from conversionary marriages, whereas non-Jewish religious practices more clearly predominated among children of mixed marriages. These findings provide an important corrective to the truncated portrayal of outmarried households furnished by Jewish community surveys. Many of the latter have shown the presence of Jewish patterns—including current or planned Jewish education for the children of out-marriages—but have ignored totally the simultaneous existence of non-Jewish patterns within the same households. Moreover, the same study of out-married households found that the social networks of the children of both conversionary and mixed marriages included more non-Jews than was the case with their Jewish-born parents. As compared to the parent generation, the adult children of out-marriages were characterized by more frequent out-marriage and less frequent conversion to Judaism of the non-Jewish born partner.72 Although the indications that emerge from the empirical evidence are somewhat tentative and preliminary, they do raise questions about the extent to which the transmission of Jewish identity to the children of out-marriages is effective. Given the increase in out-marriages, this issue is of prime importance for the demographic dynamics and population balance of American Jewry. On the basis of the current evidence, the prevalent process cannot be described as a sudden and complete loss of the out-married and their children; rather, a chain of events seems to be set into motion as each step affects the likelihood and direction of the next. The growing body of recently available survey data shows that as a result of more frequent outmarriage, particularly mixed marriage, Jewish identity is generally weakened, often amalgamated with the ethnocultural heritage of an originally non-Jewish spouse or parent and frequently lost in the longer run. Overall Identification Balance There is hardly any statistical evidence on secession from the Jewish population through either adherence to a different religious group or complete lack of identification with any such group. Most of the data collected by Jewish organizations, including those derived from interview surveys, are prone to bias, especially when samples are derived from lists of those who are in some way Jewishly active. A similar bias has also been attributed to surveys based on samples of households bearing distinctive Jewish names.73 Such surveys tend to picture Jewish wives in out-marriages as attached to Judaism and raising their children Jewishly. But they are marred by an insufficient representation of the opposite: out-married ex-Jewesses who live in non-Jewish surroundings, have lost all attachment with Judaism and the Jewish community and are missed in Jewish-sponsored surveys. An independent check of the findings obtained through Jewish surveys comes from the General Social Surveys (GSS) conducted since 1972 by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. The GSS has

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included a question on religion and some of these data have been recently published.74 According to this source, Jews have had the lowest ratio of conversions to disaffiliations among fourteen religious groups—including persons reporting no religion. The Jewish group gained forty persons from other groups per every one hundred it lost. We do not recommend giving too much credence to this exceedingly low ratio because the data file included less than five hundred interviews with selfdeclared Jews (as distinct from ex-Jews), and this number was aggregated from surveys scattered over a dozen years. Nevertheless, this rare piece of information on the direction of the Jews' identificational balance among the total U.S. population should not be overlooked altogether.

CONCLUSIONS: DECLINE OF THE CONVENTIONAL JEWISH FAMILY Since the late 1960s or early 1970s, according to the more recent U.S. Jewish community surveys and Canadian censuses and vital statistics, the proportion of Jews who were never-married, were currently divorced or separated or who were married with a currently non-Jewish spouse has substantially increased. Changes in the different aspects of family formation can be synthesized through an index of conventional Jewish family that provides the proportion of Jewish adults who are currently married and with a Jewish partner (regardless of the spouse's religion at birth). Such was the normative situation of Jewish adults throughout history; it still overwhelmingly predominated among American Jews throughout the 1960s—much more so than in other Jewish communities in Western countries. Back in 1970-71, according to the NJPS data, 87 percent of Jewish adults aged 30 to 39 (79 percent of Jewish males and 95 percent of Jewish females) lived in conventional Jewish families. By the mid-1980s this proportion had declined to an estimated range of between 70 and 50 percent—depending on locality—and it has probably continued to decline since then. What do these figures mean? Contrary to the course of most of Jewish history, including the very recent past, the conventional Jewish family is no longer the cardinal structural component of Jewish community. Although it still predominates in most Jewish surroundings, more generally, it coexists with several alternative and increasingly visible types of family experience, namely non-marriage, pastmarriage and mixed marriage. The impact of such changes is, first of all, demographic. Jewish inter-generational replacement starts with Jewish family formation. Decline in the latter almost unavoidably foreshadows decline in the former, unless marital fertility increases or reproduction is significantly transferred out of the family—neither of which has been, nor is likely to become, the case among the Jews. Demographically, the larger size of the baby boom cohorts reaching marriageable age during the 1970s should have enhanced more frequent and younger marriages by facilitating mate selection. Our analysis indicates the contrary—that for North American Jewry the marriage patterns of the 1970s are reminiscent of those of the Depression years of the 1930s. Even if we make proper allowance for the increased


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rates of unemployment during the 1970s, especially among younger adults, the economic situation of the 1970s is in no way comparable to the crisis of the 1930s. Clearly, profound changes were under way in cultural perceptions about the centrality of marriage as a worthwhile personal goal and its priority relative to other goals such as higher education, women's participation in the labor force and professional careers.75 Indeed, the different aspects of Jewish family formation reviewed here are largely consistent and closely intertwined with the socioeconomic structure and mobility characteristics of American Jews, particularly their high rate of urbanization and suburbanization, the very high proportions with college or university educational attainment and their concentration in selected branches of the white-collar occupational range. In spite of diminished nuptiality, weakened family stability and increasing heterogamy, evidence persists of a stronger familistic orientation among the Jews than among other groups, after controlling for socioeconomic differences.76 But, in the context of the greater Jewish familism of the past, the recent changes in Jewish marriage patterns constitute a greater departure from the previous sociodemographic course for Jews than they do for other groups. Of special interest, here, is the process of, or at least the aspiration to, individuation (i.e. moving out of the parental family without forming one's own family or procreating). This appears to be especially intensive among young Jews, where individuation may be connected with greater economic resources and a persisting stronger attraction toward university education, but it also weakens ethnic ties with the community of origin. Indeed, the other young adult group whose preferred mobility characteristics most resemble those of the Jews is the one reporting no religio-ethnic preference.77 Will the recent shifts in the personal preferences of young adults be reversed in the future? In the shorter term, a new marriage boom would be necessary to return the proportions of ever-married Jewish adults to levels comparable to those of past decades. Whether such a marriage boom will occur, will depend (as in the past) on the interplay of social norms concerning the family with socioeconomic and demographic factors. It is likely that marriage may still constitute a widely held ideal among the younger Jewish generation.78 But, in the general context of American society, some of the forces that produced the recent changes have probably not run their full course and may yet produce further changes in the same direction.79 In particular, the declining role of the family in fulfilling economic and educational functions, the changing status of women in society and the ambivalent response of men to such changes and the disjunction between sex and procreation are all consistent with the diminished salience of (stable) marriages in society. Considering the extensive participation of Jews in most general societal transformations in America, the simple extrapolation that as Jews have tended to marry in the past, so they will continue to do in the future, can no longer be accepted. The observed changes in family formation are in keeping with, partly explain and reinforce the effects of the decline in fertility recently documented.80 Fewer and later marriages together with low fertility are erosive forces for the Jewish population in America. Mixed marriage and the weak or composite Jewish identification of the children of such marriages magnify the demographic consequences of recent

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Jewish population trends. The processes at work in the Jewish community support the assimilation hypothesis regarding the interpretation of the contemporary relations and interactions between religious and ethnic groups in American society. From the group-specific perspective of the influence of these processes on the current population dynamics of the U.S. Jews, the consistent indication is that of attrition. These findings have significant historical and communal implications that reach beyond the present and the future of Jews in America. Historically, the Jewish family was not only the product of a certain type of traditional culture it also was the main agency of cultural continuity. In the traditional communities of the past, demographic reproduction and cultural reproduction went together; to some extent, this was also true of American Jews until the mid-1960s. The past and current changes have substantially reduced the previous sociodemographic differences between American and other Western Jews. Thus, they seem to contradict the major theoretical axiom, and prediction, that America would be different. The cultural pluralism of American society was expected to combine with the large size of the Jewish population in promoting a higher degree of cultural and sociodemographic cohesiveness and distinctiveness among American Jews than elsewhere in the Diaspora. But the fact that the basic trends of family patterns in the United States—as measured by the index of conventional Jewish family—are quite similar to those observed in, say, France,81 indicates that the theoretical framework on which these assumptions are based is inadequate. An alternative analytical approach that stresses the similar structural position and cultural vulnerability of Jewish population minorities everywhere is therefore necessary. At the same time, the evidence of the rapidly diminishing distinctiveness of Jewish family patterns raises significant questions about the salience of ethnicity in America in the long term. From the policy perspective, the community now being redefined is one in which the conventional Jewish family plays a smaller role than in the past as the basis of social interaction and the creator of Jewish continuity. Consequently, if the current trends are not dramatically reversed—this does not seem likely in the near future— the development of a viable Jewish community life will require new approaches to Jewish continuity. This, in turn, will necessitate a firmer and more systematic base of scientific research than the present one—a base that can provide the foundations for Jewish policy decisions aimed at strengthening Jewish identification and at ensuring a meaningful Jewish life in America.

Notes Parts of this paper were originally presented at the Conference on New Perspectives in American Jewish Sociology: Findings and Implications, American Jewish Committee, New York, 28-29 May 1986. Sidney Goldstein read the original manuscript and provided valuable comments. Judith Even and Arin Poller, Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics, Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ably assisted in the preparation of this paper.


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1. See, for example, Charles E. Silberman, A Certain People: American Jews and Their Lives Today (New York: 1985). 2. Roberto Bachi, Population Trends of World Jewry (Jerusalem: 1976); Sergio DellaPergola, "Patterns of American Jewish Fertility," Demography 17, no. 3 (1980), 261273; Uziel O. Schmelz, "Jewish Survival: The Demographic Factors," American Jewish Year Book 81 (1981), 61-117; idem, World Jewish Population: Regional Estimates and Projections (Jerusalem: 1981); Uziel O. Schmelz and Sergio DellaPergola, "The Demographic Consequences of U.S. Jewish Population Trends," American Jewish Year Book 83 (1983), 141-187; Uziel O. Schmelz, Aging of World Jewry (Jerusalem: 1984). 3. Steven M. Cohen and Calvin Goldscheider, "Jews More or Less," Moment 9 (September 1984), 41-46; Calvin Goldscheider and Alan S. Zuckerman, The Transformation of the Jews (Chicago and London: 1984); Steven M. Cohen and Leonard M. Fein, "From Integration to Survival: American Jewish Anxieties in Transition," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 480 (July 1985), 75-88; Calvin Goldscheider, Jewish Continuity and Change: Emerging Patterns in America (Bloomington: 1985); idem, The American Jewish Community—Social Science Research and Policy Implications (Atlanta: 1986). 4. Uziel O. Schmelz and Sergio DellaPergola, Basic Trends in U.S. Jewish Demography (New York: 1988). 5. Sidney Goldstein, "American Jewry, 1970: A Demographic Profile," American Jewish Year Book 72 (1971), 3-88; idem, "Jews in the United States: Perspectives from Demography," American Jewish Year Book 81 (1981), 3-59; idem, "Jewish Demography: The Research Challenges," in Jerry A. Winter and Lester I. Levin (eds.), Advancing the State of the Art: Colloquium on Jewish Population Studies (New York: 1984), 7-15; idem, "American Jewish Demography: Inconsistencies that Challenge." (Paper presented at the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, 1985); idem, "Population Trends in American Jewry," Judaism 36, no. 2 (1987), 135-146. 6. Steven M. Cohen, Jonathan S. Woocher and Bruce A. Phillips (eds.), Perspectives in Jewish Population Research (Boulder and London: 1984); Winter and Levin, Advancing the State of the Art. 7. Goldscheider, American Jewish Community; Steven M. Cohen, "Vitality and Resilience of the American Jewish Family," in Steven M. Cohen and Paula Hyman (eds.), The Jewish Family: Myths and Reality (New York and London: 1986), 221-229. 8. At the time of this writing, an effort at centralization of available survey data in the U.S. Jewish community is being undertaken at the North American Jewish Data Bank—a joint project of the Council of Jewish Federations and the Center of Jewish Studies of the City University of New York. The data bank is directed by Professor Paul Ritterband and Dr. Barry Kosmin; it operates in cooperation with Brandeis University's Center for Modern Jewish Studies and the Hebrew University's Institute of Contemporary Jewry. It is hoped that the data now being accumulated will make possible, in due course, systematic comparisons of major sociodemographic variables across different communities in the United States as well as quasi-national syntheses. 9. Ruth Dixon, "Explaining Cross-Cultural Variations in Age at Marriage and Proportion Never Marrying," Population Studies 25, no. 2 (1971), 215-233. 10. Bachi, Population Trends; Sergio DellaPergola, La trasformazione demografica della diaspora ebraica (Turin: 1983). 11. Uziel O. Schmelz, "Demographic Evolution of Jews in Germany from the Midnineteenth Century Until 1933," Zeitschrift fur Bevolkerungswissenschaft 8, no. 1 (1982), 31-72; DellaPergola, La trasformazione demografica; Doris Bensimon and Sergio DellaPergola, La population juive de France: socio-demographie et identite (Jerusalem and Paris: 1984). 12. Schmelz and DellaPergola, "Demographic Consequences." 13. Andrew Cherlin and Caren Chelebuski, "Are Jewish Families Different? Some Evidence from the General Social Survey," Journal of Marriage and the Family 45 (1983), 903-910.

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14. U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, Monthly Vital Statistics Report (1984). 15. Gary A. Tobin and Julie A. Lipsman, "A Compendium of Jewish Demographic Studies," in Cohen, Woocher and Phillips, Perspectives, 137-166; Gary A. Tobin and Alvin Chenkin, "Recent Jewish Community Population Studies: A Roundup," American Jewish Year Book 85 (1985), 154-178. 16. Frances E. Kobrin and Calvin Goldscheider, The Ethnic Factor in Family Structure and Mobility (Cambridge: 1978); Jim Torczyner, The Jewish Family in Canada, 1981 (Montreal: 1984); Goldscheider, Continuity and Change, chap. 5. 17. Such differences between the NJPS and Canadian data may arouse the suspicion that the NJPS tended to over-sample married persons or persons in households where there were married persons. Because some of the same biases also affect the subsequent local Jewish community surveys, the recent growth in reported singlehood clearly reflects a real trend, not a change in data quality. 18. Statistics Canada, 1981 Census of Canada (Ottawa: 1983). 19. The effects of external migrations, mortality and—in the case of the Jewish population—identificational changes have been ignored. 20. The authors' processing of the NJPS data file. 21. Includes a small proportion of widowers. No detailed tabulations on the structure of Jewish population by sex, age and marital status have been published from the Canadian census of 1981. The data reported here were obtained through the processing of a special data file made available by Statistics Canada to the Council of Jewish Federations and the School of Social Work of McGill University. See Torczyner, Jewish Family. 22. Jay Y. Brodbar-Nemzer, "Divorce and Group Commitment: The Case of the Jews," Journal of Marriage and the Family 48, no. 3 (1986), 329-340. 23. Arlan Thornton and Willard L. Rodgers, Changing Patterns of Marriage and Divorce in the United States (Ann Arbor: 1983). 24. Milton Gordon, Assimilation in American Life (New York: 1964); Andrew M. Greeley, Ethnicity in the United States (New York: 1974); William L. Yancey, E. P. Ericksen and R. N. Juliani, "Emergent Ethnicity: A Review and Reformulation," American Sociological Review 41, no. 3 (1976), 391-403. 25. The term "intermarriage" is found in the literature as a synonym for each of the three terms: "out-marriage," "mixed marriage" and "conversionary marriage," thus creating considerable confusion. As a result, in this essay we have refrained from using the term "intermarriage." 26. Schmelz and DellaPergola, "Demographic Consequences," 162. 27. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Religion Reported by the Civilian Population of the United States: March 1957," Current Population Reports, ser. P-20, n. 79 (Washington, D.C.: 1958). 28. Schmelz and DellaPergola, "Demographic Consequences," 161-164. For earlier analyses of the same data, see Fred Massarik, "Explorations in Intermarriage," American Jewish Year Book 74 (1973), 292-306; Bernard Lazerwitz, "Jewish-Christian Marriages and Conversion," Jewish Social Studies, 43, no. 1 (1981), 31-46. 29. Steven M. Cohen and Paul Ritterband, Intermarriage: Rates, Background, and Consequences for Jewish Identification (New York: 1985) (mimeograph.) 30. Bruce A. Phillips, "Factors Associated with Intermarriage in the Western United States.'' (Paper presented at the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, 1985.) 31. Schmelz and DellaPergola, "Demographic Consequences," 164. 32. Paul Ritterband and Steven M. Cohen, "The Social Characteristics of the New York Area Jewish Community, 1981," American Jewish Year Book 84 (1984), 128-161; Gary A. Tobin, Jewish Population Survey of Metro West, New Jersey. (Personal communication, 1987.) 33. Albert Mayer, The Jewish Population Study of the Greater Kansas City Area (Kansas City: 1977), 23-32. 34. Gary A. Tobin, A Demographic Study of the Jewish Community of Greater Kansas City-—Executive Summary, Summer 1986 (Kansas City: 1986).


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35. James McCann and Debra Friedman, A Study of the Jewish Community in the Greater Seattle Area (Seattle: 1979). 36. Erich Rosenthal, "Studies of Jewish Intermarriage in the United States," American Jewish Year Book 64 (1963), 3-53. 37. This is quite similar to the percentage of individual Jews currently in mixed marriages. The data, though, may include relatives other than spouses. 38. Torczyner, Jewish Family, 53. 39. Morton Weinfeld, William Shaffir and Irving Cotler (eds.), The Canadian Jewish Mosaic (Rexdale: 1981), 369; Statistics of Canada, Vital Statistics Annual Reports. 40. Torczyner, Jewish Family, 53. 41. Unpublished tabulations on marriages by religion of spouses supplied to the authors. 42. Silberman, A Certain People, 422-424. 43. Silberman's synopsis does not sufficiently distinguish between estimates that relate, respectively, to individuals or couples, recent weddings or all marriages, mixed marriages or all outmarriages of Jews. 44. Statistics Canada, Vital Statistics Annual Reports, various issues; unpublished data. See also Schmelz and DellaPergola, "Demographic Consequences," 163. 45. Richard D. Alba and R. M. Golden, "Patterns of Ethnic Marriage in the United States," Social Forces 65, no. 1 (1986), 202-224. 46. Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters, "Ethnic Groups in the Flux: The Changing Ethnic Responses of American Whites," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (September 1986). 47. Phillips, "Factors Associated with Intermarriage." For a general analysis of internal migration trends among U.S. Jewry, see Sidney Goldstein, "Population Movement and Redistribution Among American Jews," in Uziel O. Schmelz, Paul Glikson and Sergio DellaPergola (eds.), Papers in Jewish Demography 1981 (Jerusalem: 1983), 315-341. 48. Lazerwitz, "Jewish-Christian Marriages"; Phillips, "Factors Associated with Intermarriage." 49. Schmelz and DellaPergola, "Demographic Consequences," 149-151, 164. 50. Goldscheider, Continuity and Change, 12-24. 51. Silberman, A Certain People, 297-318. 52. Modalities of passage from other religious-ethnic groups to the Jewish and vice versa are not discussed in this essay. Self-identification of the respondents when interviewed in a survey is the principal means for establishing to which group they belong. 53. Schmelz and DellaPergola, "Demographic Consequences," 165. 54. These proportions related to the ascertainable instances. If out-conversionary marriages of Jews could have been adequately included in the denominators, the percentages of spouses converted to Judaism would have been reduced accordingly. 55. Bernard D. Lazerwitz, "Current Jewish Intermarriages in the United States," in Uziel O. Schmelz, Paul Glikson and Sergio DellaPergola (eds.), Papers in Jewish Demography 1977 (Jerusalem: 1980), 103-114. 56. Cohen and Ritterband, Intermarriage. 57. Egon Mayer and Carl Scheingold, Intermarriage and the Jewish Future: A National Study in Summary (New York: 1979); Egon Mayer, "Regular Jews, New Jews and NonJews: Some Methodological Reflections and New Data on Diversity Within the American Jewish Population." (Paper presented at the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, 1985.) 58. Steven Huberman, "Becoming a Reform Jew: Problems and Prospects," Journal of Reform Judaism, no. 1, 1981, 58-67; Steven Huberman, "From Christianity to Judaism: Religion Changers in American Society," Conservative Judaism 36, no. 1 (1982), 10-28. 59. Schmelz and DellaPergola, "Demographic Consequences." 60. Not 27 percent as misprinted in Schmelz and DellaPergola, "Demographic Consequences," 166. 61. Cohen and Ritterband, Intermarriage. 62. This may have been influenced somewhat by differences in the proportions of

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fathers or mothers who have seceded from Judaism; such persons are usually not included in Jewish community surveys. 63. Gary A. Tobin, Jewish Population Study of Greater Baltimore, (Baltimore: 1986). 64. Ibid., 144. 65. Peter Friedman et al. Metropolitan Chicago Jewish Population 1981: Preliminary Tables (Chicago: 1982). 66. Tobin, Jewish Community of Greater Kansas City, 5. 67. William L. Yancey and Ira Goldstein, The Jewish Population of the Greater Philadelphia Area (Philadelphia: 1984), 129-166. 68. Ibid. Some of these findings come from very small sample figures, therefore, they should be treated with caution. 69. Goldscheider, Continuity and Change, 14-16. 70. Bernard Lazerwitz, ' 'Intermarriage and Conversion: A Guide for Future Research,'' Jewish Journal of Sociology 13, no. 1 (1971), 41-63. 71. Egon Mayer, Children of Intermarriage: A Study in Patterns of Identification and Family Life (New York: 1983). Mayer's samples are likely to be biased toward the more Jewishly oriented sections of the out-married population, as he himself explains in both Mayer and Sheingold, Intermarriage and the Jewish Future, 7-8; and Mayer, Children of Intermarriage, 4-6. 72. Seen. 71. 73. Fred Massarik, "New Approaches to the Study of the American Jew," Jewish Journal of Sociology 8, no. 2 (1966), 175-191; Bernard Lazerwitz, "Some Comments on the Use of Distinctive Jewish Names in Surveys," Contemporary Jewry 1 (1986), 83-91. 74. Tom W. Smith, "Religious Mosaic," American Demographics (June 1984), 1923; Fred Massarik, "A Changing Era in U.S. Jewish Population Research: Multiple Research Strategies—Indexes and Heuristics," in Schmelz, Glikson and DellaPergola, Jewish Demography 1981, 105-127. 75. Rela Geffen Monson, Jewish Campus Life: A Survey of Student Attitudes Toward Marriage and Family (New York: 1984), 16-20. 76. Jay Y. Brodbar-Nemzer, "Marital Relationships and Self-Esteem: How Jewish Families Are Different," Journal of Marriage and the Family 48, no. 1 (1986), 89-98; Goldscheider, Continuity and Change, 69-73. 77. Calvin Goldscheider and Frances K. Goldscheider, "Moving Out and Marriage: What Do Young Adults Expect?", American Sociological Review 52, no. 2 (1987), 278285. 78. A survey of the U.S. high-school class of 1972 indicated that about 95 percent of young Jewish adults expected to marry—a higher percentage than among other religiousethnic groups. The expected age at marriage was higher among Jews than among others. See Calvin Goldscheider and Frances K. Goldscheider, "Family Size Expectations of Young American Jewish Adults." (Paper presented at the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, 1985.) 79. Charles F. Westoff, "Fertility in the United States," Science 234 (31 October 1986), 554-559. 80. Ibid.; Schmelz and DellaPergola, Basic Trends in U.S. Jewish Demography. 81. Sergio DellaPergola, "Contemporary Jewish Family Patterns in France: A Comparative Perspective," in Cohen and Hyman, Jewish Family, 148-171.

American Jewish Marriages: Erosion or Transformation? Calvin Goldscheider (BROWN UNIVERSITY)

Over the last half-century, major changes have occurred in the marriage patterns and family structure of the American Jewish population. Given the centrality of family life for the transmission of Jewish culture and for the continuity of the American Jewish community, these changes are particularly important both to document and interpret. The major outline of these changes has already been suggested in the literature and has been documented in a series of scholarly publications based on extensive research. Some have focused at the local level, arguing that family changes are part of the broader question of ethnic continuity. Ethnic studies are most clearly carried out at the community level as a national focus neutralizes local variation and misses some important ways that Jews relate to their Jewishness. Others have addressed the issue of family change in the context of the broader revolutions in women and family roles, and they have used national American data sources when a sufficient data base exists. Regardless of the specific focus, the issues associated with family change have been identified and the general contours have been investigated in previous studies. In the essay by DellaPergola and Schmelz, "Demographic Transformations of American Jewry: Marriage and Mixed Marriage in the 1980s," this research has been carried forward. We are all indebted to them for the careful and systematic documentation of these family patterns among North American Jews in the recent period, the evaluation of the limitations of existing data sources and their continual struggle to squeeze comparative detail from published materials so as to better understand family changes among American Jews. Although the patterns that they document have been discussed and analyzed in the scholarly literature, having new data with some details on particular communities adds confidence that the patterns others have observed are generalizable and extend into the most recent period. Yet, beyond their data organization and documentation, they present an argument, interpretations and an overall theme. There are disagreements about their conceptualization of the issues, their assumptions and their use of evidence. At times, these are simply questions of style and language, of no major consequence for the "fact-oriented review" that DellaPergola and Schmelz undertake. More often, there are issues associated with futures and unknowns. How do we know

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about the future and on what do we base our guesses, estimates and projections? No one has a firm handle on the future. But our conceptualizations and interpretations of current trends take on particular significance when they become the basis for evaluating alternative future patterns of family life. They are of critical importance to the policy suggestions and program priorities that emerge from social science research. On these interpretative and theoretical issues, I think that there are significant limitations to the arguments of DellaPergola and Schmelz. The most basic issue of disagreement surrounds their conceptualization of the processes underlying family changes as "erosion." According to DellaPergola and Schmelz, the fundamental question is whether "erosive processes are currently at work in the demography of the Jewish family" or whether such "demographic erosion either does not exist or is only temporary and insignificant in the long ran." I disagree. The core issue is whether we treat the family changes that are occurring, and around which there is little disagreement, as erosion or transformation. They have argued for the former (despite the title of their article), whereas I and some of my colleagues have argued for the latter. Does it make any difference how we treat family changes? Most assuredly! The issue is not simply semantic but goes to the very core of our understanding of the sociology and demography of American Jews. By demographic erosion they mean "a serious population problem for American Jewry" derived from a variety of demographic changes and "a negative balance between identificational inflows to, and outflows from, the Jewish community." The consequences of these trends is "a negative balance between Jewish births and Jewish deaths and between accessions and secessions—leading to Jewish population decline." On the other hand, transformation means that radical structural and cultural changes are occurring, but the consequences for the Jewish community in terms of continuity and change remain unclear and require systematic study. This is not only because we have limited data (of course, we have less precise data than we need) but mainly because, with transformation, the past becomes more problematic as a guide to the future. The transformation of family patterns means that there are new unprecedented patterns emerging in the modern period. How these unprecedented family patterns are related to Jewish continuity remains to be studied, not inferred from the patterns of the past. A simple example will illustrate the difference between "erosion" and "transformation." Increases in the divorce rate are viewed from the point of view of erosion as another indicator of the breakdown of the family and as part of the decline of traditional sources of Jewish family values. In the past divorce rates were low and family centrality characterized Jews everywhere. Increases in the rate of divorce are therefore part of the serious population problems of American Jews. Once placed in the erosion context, divorce rates can be presented (as DellaPergola and Schmelz do in their Table 3) without attention to whether remarriage occurs following divorce, to the timing of divorce in the life course, or to whether being "currently divorced" has an impact on demographic behavior or Jewishness. These types of relationships are more difficult to analyze, but the data to do so are available from the sources cited by DellaPergola and Schmelz. Yet, within their erosion framework, they feel no need to go beyond the presentation of simple

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changes in the divorce rate to indicate that there is a problem here, along with other erosion tendencies. Erosion necessarily follows, then, by inference from the rates of increase. When the authors do go beyond data on the increase in divorce, they cite with unqualified support a published report on the current Jewishness of the "everdivorced" (not the currently divorced). Here, unlike for their demographic data, they attempt no evaluation of the data they present, although there are serious methodological problems in connecting current ritual observance with divorce patterns that may have occurred in the distant past. What is cause and what is effect? And they do not cite studies of Boston, New York and national U.S. data that show high rates of remarriage among the divorced and that there are few significant differences in the Jewishness of the ever-divorced and the currently married. In contrast, the transformation argument views increasing divorce rates in the context of both the costs and the benefits. Divorce implies greater independence of men and women in their choices about marriage partners and radical changes in the roles of men and women over the last several decades. Examining remarriage rates of American Jewish men and women reveals that divorce does not lead simply to a decline in family life as a large proportion of the divorced remarry relatively soon after divorce. Thus, the trend toward increasing divorce implies that adults are not rejecting marriage per se but rejecting a particular spouse. Most important, the ways changes in divorce affect how Jews and their children are linked to the Jewish community and whether an increase in divorce rates implies a breakdown in Jewish communal affiliations and ethnic-religious identification are issues that need to be researched, not conclusions that can be assumed. Hence, those who argue for transformation will not automatically treat the rise in divorce as necessarily affecting the quantitative or qualitative basis of Jewish continuity. In addition to divorce the two key family themes that DellaPergola and Schmelz treat within the context of erosion are changes in the entry to marriage and in intermarriages. It is on their analysis and interpretation of these two family issues that I want to focus. First, how do they treat changes in the extent and timing of marriage? The data presented by DellaPergola and Schmelz in their Table 1 show that the proportion of Jewish women aged 35 to 44 who were never married is between 3 and 6.6 percent in recent surveys of U.S. Jewish communities (and in Canada the proportion in 1981 is 6 percent, significantly less than in 1941 and 1951). These are neither high nor alarming proportions. Moreover, young Jewish adults in the United States and in Canada have a higher proportion of singles than non-Jews. (In their comparisons, no controls for socioeconomic status are included. Detailed analytic studies show that these higher rates among Jews largely reflect the higher educational levels of young Jewish women.) An increasing proportion of Jews aged 25 to 34 are single, with wide variation by community. Here the key question is how many of these unmarried Jews will remain single and how many will simply marry at a later age than previous cohorts. They suggest that the correct interpretation of these data is a decline in the propensity to marry rather than a postponement of marriage. However, their calculations to support such an argument are flawed. The measure they use, period proportion

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ever-marrying (PEM) presented in their Table 2, is based on the assumption that age-specific marriage rates observed during the 1970s will persist in the future. Such an assumption in times when the marriage regime is changing is seriously distorting, as their own data show when their PEM for 1951-61 shows that more than 100 percent of the women in Canada have ever married! Indeed, their own conclusions suggesting that "simple extrapolation" from the past "can no longer be accepted" applies to their own calculations. Predicting future marriage trends using current data is therefore risky. The only evidence we have about the future (cited in their note 78) is based on the expected marriage patterns of young Jewish adults in the United States. It shows a high level of expected eventual marriage, even when postponed. Thus there is as yet no reliable evidence that Jewish marriage postponed is marriage foregone. However, even if it turns out that delayed marriage results in higher proportions of non-marriage, will that characterize all future cohorts? We do not know, but we cannot assume that change is always in one direction only. The Canadian data they present show that marriage rates have fluctuated widely in the past and that current levels of non-marriage are no higher than those of the 1930s and 1940s. These cohort fluctuations further suggest that even if the marriage rates of the 25-34 age cohort continue to be low, later cohorts may adjust in new ways to the sex-role revolution. The patterns of the 1930s and 1940s did not continue, nor did those of the 1950s and 1960s. So, there is a risk in extending indefinitely into the future the patterns of the 1970s and 1980s. Issues of mixed marriage are more complex both because the data are more problematic and the interpretations are more difficult. Looking at the proportion of Jews with a non-converted, non-Jewish-born spouse among recent marriage cohorts or younger age groups, they document both variation and increase in mixed marriages. The demographic implications of these patterns focus on the spouses and the number and Jewishness of children in these marriages. Let us examine each of these in turn. With regard to spouses DellaPergola and Schmelz confirm the shift toward fewer formal conversions to Judaism. But the Jewish identification of persons is not limited to formal conversions and the gap between conversions and identification increases with secularization. Further, both conversions and Jewish identification vary over the life cycle. Studies have shown an increase in Jewish identification with marriage and childbearing, particularly when children reach school age. Thus, the National Jewish Population Study (NJPS) survey of 1971 showed that of those married in 1965-71 (i.e., five or fewer years), 23 percent of all non-Jewish-born spouses had converted to Judaism by the time of the study. But we know nothing about their Jewish identification and nothing about subsequent (post-1971) conversions to Judaism or changes in their Jewish identification. Even so, on the basis of the data presented, there is currently about a 20 percent gain of Jewish adults through conversion relative to total in-marriages. Because we do not know the conversion rate of Jews to non-Jewish religions, we cannot judge the net demographic effects. And what about their children? DellaPergola and Schmelz use NJPS data to compare the fertility pattern of mixed and non-mixed Jewish marriages. But the


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NJPS data are seriously outdated and hence much less relevant to their discussion of current patterns as the meaning of intermarriage has been changing. The fertility measures used are completed fertility to women aged 45 and over and children everborn for younger women. The last cohort of women aged 45 and over in the NJPS study are women born in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Is this an appropriate base to examine' the future fertility of young persons marrying and intermarrying in the 1970s and 1980s? To look at the Jewishness of young children of the cohort marrying in 1965-71 (most below school age) and studied in 1971 compounds the distortion because that covers only the youngest children of this cohort born to those who married at an early age. The authors' conclusions based on the last NJPS marriage cohort that there was a net fertility loss of 15 percent as a result of intermarriage is clearly an overestimate of loss: we do not know how many of these children will become Jewish nor do we know the completed fertility of these couples. If there are demographic issues about the fertility patterns of intermarried couples, data from the Canadian census and from the studies cited by DellaPergola and Schmelz are available for analysis. Considering the evidence they present, and contrary to the conclusions they reach, most of the major studies they cite show that about 50 percent of the children in mixed marriages are being raised as Jews, pointing to essential demographic stability when the conversions of spouses and the higher rate of Jewish identification among the converted is included. Examining only the religious activities and ritual observances of the children of the intermarried, as they do, to the exclusion of other expressions of Jewishness is inadequate because so much of Jewish identity among Jews in the United States is based on family and communal and associational networks. Their reference to studies that included information on the mixed marriage of parents as well as of the current generation again raises serious methodological questions: mixed marriages of a generation or two ago are unlike mixed marriages in contemporary America. DellaPergola and Schmelz provide an important corrective to the literature when they insist that future studies examine both Jewish and non-Jewish activities (e.g., Passover and Christmas celebrations, Jewish and Christian education) within the same mixed marriage household as well as investigate the eventual Jewishness of the children at later points in the life cycle. It is also important to interpret intermarriage (as they do) as a process that is not automatically a step toward total assimilation and loss to the Jewish community. It is a process that is probably associated with the weakening of Jewish identity; but whether it results in total assimilation in the longer run needs to be studied and represents a challenge for research. New family forms are emerging and the traditional nuclear Jewish family is declining. Their conclusion implies that the past patterns can no longer be a guide to the future. If higher education was associated with higher Jewish divorce rates in the past, that association may not necessarily characterize current patterns when divorce rates are higher and re-marriages more common. If high levels of education and female labor participation in the past were associated with lower marriage propensities, those may no longer be appropriate bases for extrapolating to the future. Particular marriage and family patterns of non-Jews may no longer be applicable to

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American Jews when the social and economic characteristics of American Jews have become distinctive. That is the core meaning of transformation and why I reject the fundamental assumptions of those who argue about continuous erosion based on past patterns. In addition to the problems of their conceptualization, there are several other limitations to the analysis presented by DellaPergola and Schmelz. These include questions about the comparisons they make and the types of empirical evidence they use. Multiple comparisons between Jewish family patterns in America and Jewish populations elsewhere (and with non-Jews of similar status in countries where Jews live) are necessary to go beyond description and documentation toward analysis and interpretation. DellaPergola and Schmelz primarily emphasize comparisons among Jewish populations, and they leave unspecified which comparisons are addressed to which analytical questions. When they compare Jews with non-Jews in America and with Jews in other countries, their contrasts are confusing. For example, they write that "from a comparative perspective, marriage patterns of Jews in the United States and Canada generally featured significantly lower rates of singlehood, accompanied by lower ages at marriage, than among Jews in Europe." But in their discussion, they switch and conclude that "the basic trends of family patterns in the United States ... are quite similar to those observed in, say, France." This latter observation leads them to assert that the "similar structural position and cultural vulnerability of Jewish population minorities everywhere" is an "alternative analytical approach" to those who argue that the American Jewish community has distinctive social and demographic features. What they mean by "cultural vulnerability" is a mystery; and clearly the size of the American Jewish population, its high educational and occupational achievements, the pluralism of its Judaism and the broader sociopolitical context of American society are distinctive. No one has ever argued seriously for only one type of comparison. Some have argued (I among them) for the inadequacy of studying the demographic processes of Jews anywhere without making systematic comparisons with non-Jews. That is a fundamental methodological strategy when particular analytical rather than descriptive themes are addressed. To analyze the relative impact of Jewishness on demography and to examine general trends, issues and relationships a focus on other white U.S. population sub-groups is the most directly appropriate comparison. Superficial similarities with Jewish demographic trends in other countries may be important descriptively—and interesting in the context of Diaspora Jewry—but they are not appropriate for analyzing relationships between social and demographic processes. When DellaPergola and Schmelz compare Jews and non-Jews—for example, in the proportion of ever-married among Jews and non-Jews in Canada (Table 2 and discussions throughout comparing Jews with the total U.S. population)—no attention is addressed to the major socioeconomic and geographic differences between Jews and non-Jews. Because these characteristics are related to the family processes under discussion, it is unclear whether they are showing the effects of socioeconomic and urban concentration or particular Jewish characteristics. If these comparisons serve analytical rather than descriptive purposes, comparing Jews to the total U.S. or Canadian population is unacceptable. Appropriate data with con-


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trols for socioeconomic and residential concentrations are available in the data sets the authors use. Throughout their discussion of demographic trends, some of their explanations refer to demographic imbalances, the size of the Jewish population and marriage markets. These demographic factors have important effects on marriage rates and intermarriage patterns, and these should be studied. Nevertheless, there is no evidence presented for their claims (a) that the "relatively small size and segmented structure of the pool of potential Jewish marriage candidates" tended to lessen marriages among the Jews in the past; (b) that "later marriages have contributed to the overall decline in fertility that has occurred in America since the 1960s"; or (c) that changes in the rate of male and female Jewish intermarriages reflect imbalances in the number of potential grooms and brides or in cohort size. More important to the demographic changes that are discussed in their essay is the enormous impact of the revolution in women's social roles in the United States, and this is not reviewed. Their discussion of overall identification balance is clearly inadequate (as they admit) because hardly any statistical evidence on secession is available. Nevertheless, why do they cite NORC data when these reveal nothing about the issue they want to address; those data focus on self-declared not "ex-" Jews? There are endless research studies that are unacceptable, methodologically problematic and that contain data that they "do not recommend giving too much credence to." In order to focus on the scholarly issues and clarify areas where further scientific research is necessary, a goal I share, more attention needs to be paid to the available reliable research. In this regard, their exclusive focus on published data from census and from Jewish community surveys limits their ability both to make appropriate comparisons and to pursue issues of analytical importance. What do all these critical points add up to? In part, I would argue that the data DellaPergola and Schmelz present, however we might argue about possible interpretations, cannot test in any decisive way hypotheses about demographic erosion in American Jewry. Although everyone who has studied the demography and sociology of American Jews shares their conclusion that there have been assimilation processes characterizing American Jews, their further assertion that these assimilation processes result in the demographic erosion and "consistent attrition" of American Jewry cannot be justified on the basis of the research they have presented. Assimilation, in the sense of changes and adaptation to the society where Jews live, has occurred in America as it occurred in other societies where Jews are living and have lived in the past. But what has not occurred and what their data cannot test or confirm is the "assimilation hypothesis" that argues for the linkage between assimilation processes and loss of community, that is, the erosion of Jewish life. I have argued for a reexamination of the assumptions underlying the interpretations they have presented and the need for a reassessment of the strengths and weaknesses, however defined, of the American Jewish community. When these analytical issues of transformation are studied directly and systematically, we shall be in a better position to consider the future of the American Jewish community and suggest policy alternatives to address that future. Building on preconceptions of demographic erosion and cultural assimilation, I argue, distorts the demographic and sociological understanding of the American Jewish community.

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In their evaluation of Jewish marriage patterns in America, they suggest new "Jewish policy decisions aimed at strengthening Jewish identification and at ensuring a meaningful Jewish life in America." It is most gratifying that in this, at least, we agree. Their suggestions for new family-based policies and away from a limited emphasis on demographic considerations that too many have argued for in the past, I hope implies a serious rethinking of the evidence and a move from a policy centered on demographic quantity to issues of improving the quality of Jewish life in America.

American Jewish Marriages: Transformation and Erosion A Rejoinder to Calvin Goldscheider Sergio DellaPergola and Uziel O, Schmelz

Although our essay dealt with marriage and mixed marriage in the 1980s,"1 Professor Goldscheider has greatly widened the focus of the discussion, and we shall therefore follow suit. There is common ground between Goldscheider and ourselves with regard to several important issues. Both sides are concerned with the quality of Jewish life in America. The issue of quality is clearly an important one in its own right, given the spiritual and cultural requirements of any Jewish group. But quality is also a prerequisite for favorable numerical evolution over the long term. Sub-populations like the Jews maintain themselves by means of the balance of births and deaths, by safeguarding their group identity and successfully transmitting it to future generations and/or by attracting new adherents. Immigration may also play a part. But if the internal evolution is not positive, it is merely a palliative. The size of the Jewish population, in turn, may significantly affect the quality of Jewish life, both locally and nationally. Both sides agree that, at present, the essential continuity of the American Jewish community is not in question. Given its considerable size (about 5.7 million) and the outstanding achievements and prestige of many of its members, American Jewry possesses great strength and staying power. At the same time, clearly, conspicuous transformations are taking place among American Jews, just as transformations, many of them of similar import, are occurring among Americans in general and, indeed, in all the more developed societies. These include notable family changes. Further, concern over Jewish population trends, though viewed somewhat differently, has led to a shared recognition that Jewish community policies aimed at strengthening Jewish identification in the United States are both desirable and feasible, though there are few illusions as to the difficulties of wide application. There is also agreement on the inadequacy of the data available on U.S. Jewry. Better and updated empirical information and more analysis are greatly needed. We would emphasize in this context the need for coordinated data representative of the 209

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whole gamut of regional environments and community sizes that can be found across U.S. Jewry, as distinct from insights of a merely local character. At the same time, there are a number of major substantive disagreements with regard to approaches to the study of American Jewry and the assessment of its sociodemographic situation and future trends. The economic and social success of many American Jews individually and of American Jewry as a component of American society poignantly sets in relief those negative demographic trends that tend to reduce Jewish population size: fewer marriages and more divorces; fertility insufficient for replacement; intensification of aging; in all probability an unfavorable balance of accessions and secessions, partly connected with increasing out-marriage; and the consequent prospect of a not inconsiderable diminution of U.S. Jewry within the next few decades. Although out-marriage and identificational problems are specific to sub-populations like American and other Diaspora Jews, diminished nuptiality, insufficient fertility and consequent aging processes are now to be found, as every student of contemporary society knows, throughout the developed countries. Consequently, a general population decrease is already taking place in West Germany, for instance, despite its advanced economic standing; zero population growth—to be followed by actual shrinkage, unless the trend changes—is anticipated by the "medium" projection of the United Nations for the whole of Europe (excluding the USSR) in the 2020s and by the "medium" projection of the Bureau of the Census for the United States in the 2030s. Goldscheider studiously disregards these tendencies. Neither can they be shrugged off as mere matters of quantity unworthy of the attention of those concerned with the quality of life in general and of Jewish life in particular. A strong aging trend is an inevitable outcome of the very low fertility that largely reflects the diminishing presence of the conventional nuclear family. Aging, in turn, further impairs the balance of births and deaths and will have enormous qualitative implications: economically, socially, psychologically and communally. And because demographic aging is now and will continue to be greater among the Jews, its consequences will be more powerful among them. One simply cannot close one's eyes to these very real processes of erosion. Goldscheider's sociological theory of American Jewry does not accommodate the demographic facts. He tends to ignore those tendencies that do not agree with its theoretical framework, for example, the rapid increase of mixed marriage (without conversion of the non-Jewish spouse)2 that is taking place not only in the expanding Jewish communities in the U.S. South and West but also in the Boston area that he himself investigated as of 1975. Symptomatically, he modified our statement that the predominant indication of the recent surveys is that "less than one-half of the children of mixed marriage are Jewish" and preferred to claim, instead, that "about 50 percent of the children in mixed marriages are being raised as Jews.'' As this is primarily a demographic debate, we cannot comment here in detail on Goldscheider's more general disregard of the adverse tendencies that manifest themselves—along with some encouraging ones emphasized by him—in the religious, cultural and communal spheres of American Jewish life and in the quality of

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the Jewish identity of many individual Jews in America. Goldscheider admits the existence of assimilation processes while rejecting the "assimilation hypothesis," which in his own words, "argues for the linkage between assimilation processes and loss of community, that is, the erosion of Jewish life." However, he fails to demonstrate that the overall effects of invigorating new forms of attachment to Jewish life come even close to counterbalancing the effects of the assimilatory processes that are occurring. Goldscheider makes no attempt to explain why the assimilation processes should stop short of erosive effects, at any rate in the longer run. He resorts to semantics, calling the assimilatory process "transformations." At the same time, he leaves no doubt that his particular restrictive use of the term "transformations" excludes changes of a negative character,3 which all boils down to his basic claim of assimilation without erosion. Where American Jews are concerned, Goldscheider seems uncomfortable with accepted analytical tools of comparison and analogy. He disclaims the usefulness of comparisons with conditions of only a few decades ago for an understanding of U.S. Jewry's present and future, because of changes that have already occurred. He is inconsistent with regard to comparing Jews with the general U.S. population: on the one hand, he recommends comparisons between the Jews and other U.S. subgroups or expresses himself in favor of socioeconomically specific comparisons; on the other hand, he declares that even particular marriage and fertility patterns of non-Jews (e.g., controlling for women's education and labor force participation) may no longer be applicable to American Jews, who have become "distinctive." And he deprecates comparisons with contemporary Jews outside the United States, dismissing the "superficial similarities". In our view Goldscheider goes too far in his claims for the distinctiveness of American Jews and in asserting their incomparability both with other U.S. groups and with Jews in other highly developed countries. To the contrary, comparisons with the relevant strata of the surrounding general population and with Jews in other countries are legitimate and worthwhile devices for the sociodemographic study of contemporary Jewry. Comparisons with other Jewish Diaspora populations are an appropriate way to assess the differential influence of environment, given a common Jewish historical background and many common processes of sociodemographic evolution. Underlying similarities between Jewries—varying intensity and timing of phenomena notwithstanding—are neither accidental nor surprising because the great majority of Jews in the Western countries hailed from Eastern Europe within the last hundred years and because essentially similar trends pervade the demography of all populations in the West. Another issue concerns the time dimension, particularly the readiness to probe into the future. As already pointed out, Goldscheider views the experience of a few decades ago as irrelevant in interpretations of the present and future because of changed conditions. Moreover, one of his main demographic tenets is that recent evolution should not be taken at face value. Thus, he has interpreted the recent slackening of marriage propensities and of fertility among the U.S. Jews as no more than a rescheduling of these events from earlier to later stages in the life cycle. Similarly, he has repeatedly prognosticated in his writings—though he seems a

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little less confident in his present review—that first marriages and childbearing at older ages will make up for those respective events that do not take place among younger adults. This line of argumentation has been an important element in his sanguine assessment of the future demographic prospects of American Jewry. Nevertheless, he also asks rhetorically, "How do we know about the future and on what do we base our guesses, estimates and projections?" and replies: "No one has a firm handle on the future." For our part, we have demonstrated age-specifically for the U.S. and Canadian Jews that belated marriages do not make up for the decline in marriage at younger ages4 and that delayed fertility does not compensate for the drop at younger ages.5 Evidence of a sharp increase in the proportion of never-married Jews at ages 30 to 39 (from 9 to 23 percent) is available from the 1985 Survey of Boston—the same local Jewry whose 1975 survey provided most of the empirical data for Goldscheider's theorizing. What is more, similar phenomena have been well documented with regard to the general populations in the United States and other developed countries. Had Goldscheider's reasoning and expectations been correct, a striking increase in belated marriages and fertility as well as a return to the previous overall marriage propensities and fertility levels would have manifested themselves in the U.S. Jewish community studies of the 1980s, as considerable time had elapsed since the onset in the 1960s of the roughly concurrent marriage and fertility declines. In fact, no such resilience can be detected. Neither does Goldscheider provide us with a serious analytical clue to justify his expectation of compensatory mechanisms that would allegedly operate on the age patterns and period intensity of family trends. Marriage propensities did increase spectacularly between the 1940s and the end of the 1950s, after their depression in the 1930s; but this does not imply that in the 1980s marriage will increase after the declines of the 1960s and 1970s. A unique combination of societal factors stood behind the marriage boom after the Second World War. Among these were: (1) the intense economic expansion of those postwar years, (2) the favorable position of relatively small cohorts in a labor market eager for manpower and ready to offer attractive wages, (3) the then still-persisting prevalence of familistic norms and traditional sex roles in society. At least the first and the third of these major factors do not apply to American society in the late 1980s. On both conceptual and empirical grounds, the strong nuptiality decline that took place in the last twenty-five years or so among the Jews and the general U.S. population as well as in other developed countries does not appear to be only temporary. Rather, it suggests profound and lasting changes in family patterns. Uncertainty of the future is a truism, and we could easily enlarge on the novelty of the current demographic situation in the developed countries. This, however, appears to us beside the relevant point. Although the actual future remains uncertain, it is common in social science research and, indeed, indispensable for practical planning purposes, to inquire into hypothetical courses of evolution should the ascertained present trends continue or be modified in defined ways. This is the task of projection, more specifically, of alternative projections using different sets of assumptions such as those that we computed for U.S. Jewry. 6 These computations

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show that under all realistic assumptions numerical decline and further aging are in store. Nor is this finding at all surprising in view of what has been reported herein about the demographic prospects of the world's developed nations, including the United States. Accordingly, among the various kinds of tranformations that American Jewry is experiencing are erosive processes. Finally, we briefly record our disagreement with a few specific points raised by Goldscheider. We disagree with his assessment of the respective merits and limitations of period and cohort measurements. Clearly, period data reflect a cross-section of different cohorts at different stages of the life cycle, and this must be taken into account in analyzing the results. The obvious advantage of period data is their rapid availability, as contrasted with cohort data, which require waiting until the terminal stage and thus lag considerably behind the relevant events. An example of the analytical pitfalls is provided by Goldscheider himself who notes, on the basis of recent U.S. surveys, that the proportions of never-married women at ages 35 to 44 are "neither high nor alarming." Yet, these women had been in the prime marriageable ages some fifteen to twenty years before the respective surveys, which means that most of those who married did so before the recent nuptiality decline. Hence, his claim is of little relevance to the current situation that has been the subject under discussion here. In the modern, rather secular, era small Jewish population size, indeed, seems to be one of the demographic determinants of out-marriage, as distinct from the past when inter-religious cleavages were more prominent. Small Jewish numbers per se and the often resulting sex imbalances at the prime marriageable ages (which differ somewhat for both sexes) make it more difficult to find a suitable spouse homogamously. The consequently higher levels of out-marriage when Jews are scattered in smaller groups are well documented. Goldscheider dwells at some lengths on the various consequences of increased divorce. He fails to mention, however, that the increased incidence of divorce tends to reduce fertility and replacement prospects. As to the remarriage of divorcees, one must distinguish between absolute and relative frequencies. An increase in divorces may have led to larger absolute numbers of remarriages, but it is doubtful whether the proportion remarrying among divorced U.S. Jews has risen. In any event, considering the strong increase in divorces, the higher absolute number of divorced, but not remarried, Jewish individuals are a relevant new feature of the Jewish community. Higher education and greater labor force participation of women lead to lower actual fertility and lower fertility expectations in the general U.S. population. Goldscheider's claims to the contrary for Jewish women, based solely on data from the 1975 Boston Survey, must be treated with serious reservations until further evidence accrues. Although our article was intended as a factual outline of the diverse and complex evidence on certain aspects of the demography of American Jewish families, we welcome what has been a constructive exchange of views with Professor Goldscheider. We hope it has helped to clarify some of the wider substantive and methodological issues of contemporary Jewish demography.

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Notes 1. In fact, the essay evolved from a more comprehensive paper presented to the Conference on New Perspectives in American Jewish Sociology: Findings and Implications, convened by the American Jewish Committee in New York, 28-29 May 1986: U. O. Schmelz and Sergio DellaPergola, "Some Basic Trends in the Demography of U.S. Jews: A Re-examination.'' 2. We divided out-marriages according to whether the non-Jewish spouse converted or not. We did so for the convenience of using a familiar terminology. Actually, in most U.S. Jewish surveys that furnish relevant data, the distinction—as Goldscheider who raises this point must know—was not according to whether a formal conversion had taken place, but according to whether the originally non-Jewish spouse was identified as Jewish in the survey. Hence, informal self-identifications with the Jewish group were also actually taken into account, contrary to Goldscheider's contention. 3. The standard dictionaries attach to the word "transformation" the neutral and comprehensive meaning of change—and not only that of a change of form along with a preservation of fundamental substance, as Goldscheider wishes to construe this term in contradistinction to "erosion." We have followed the usage of the dictionaries. 4. See our essay in this volume, pp. 169-200. 5. See our wider study mentioned in n. 1. 6. U. O. Schmelz and Sergio DellaPergola, "The Demographic Consequences of U.S. Jewish Population Trends," American Jewish Year Book 83 (1983), 141-187; idem, Basic Trends in U.S. Jewish Demography (New York: The American Jewish Committee, 1988).

New Approaches to French Public Opinion Under Vichy, 1940-1942 Asher Cohen (UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA)

The period between July 1940 and November 1942 was marked by the division of France into the Occupied Zone and the Unoccupied Zone. In theory, the French Vichy government was sovereign throughout the whole country, but its actual authority was limited. In the Occupied Zone the Germany Military Command in France (Militarbefehlshaber [MBF])—stationed in Paris—and Ambassador Otto Abetz (seconded by various other German agencies, the Schutzstaffel [SS] and police) had nominal authority only. Yet, although the French were not completely powerless in the Occupied Zone, the Germans had much greater power, albeit subject to certain limitations.1 These two authorities pursued policies toward the Jews that were dissimilar in theory, method and final aims. German rule in the North was characterized by a basic racist attitude toward Jews. Although the Final Solution became part of Germany's overall policy only after January 1942 and in France a few months later, even before that time the German policy in the occupied territories was much harsher and more aggressive than that followed in the unoccupied South.2 The National Revolution initiated by the Petain government was intended to mark a complete break from the prewar Third Republic and to set up a totally new regime. Its anti-Jewish program was not coincidental, but an integral part of its policy. Robert Paxton has analyzed thoroughly both the complex issues of the National Revolution and Vichy's first anti-Jewish legislative initiatives.3 Jews, Freemasons and the political parties were the trio perpetually blamed for all France's misfortunes. Antisemitism served as the common denominator for many of the anti-liberal elements of the National Revolution—the Maurrasian slogan, "La France aux frangais"', the extensive reliance on the Catholic Church ("Le retour de dieu aux ecoles")', "Le retour a la terre"; and some Fascist influence in corporatist ideas. Against this background, the Jews were depicted as an alien, if not hostile, element. Reinforced by the assumption that Germany was destined to dominate Europe, the elimination of Jewish influence in French political, economic and cultural life was an important component of the new regime's domestic and foreign policy. Clearly, not every step taken after 1940 was the result of prior planning; but during the first twenty months, Vichy conducted its anti-Jewish policy with very little or no 215

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German involvement. Moreover, during this period the French people had every opportunity to become aware of this policy: the enactment and implementation of the laws were the public acts of the constituted government and its administrative bodies, and they were reported in the press.4 The development of French public opinion was greatly influenced by the specific composition of the Jewish population in France. Even without precise statistical data, it is clear that the French attitude toward the Jews was affected by the high percentage of recent immigrants among them and by their uneven geographic distribution. The total number of Jews in France in 1939 has been estimated at between 330,000 and 350,000. Of these, about half were not French citizens and more than two-thirds were either immigrants or the children of immigrants, some of whom were naturalized. Up to 1940 more than 200,000 of them lived in Paris or its environs and something less than 100,000 lived in several large cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Bordeux, Nice, Cannes and in Alsace. But less than 25 percent, or about 9 million, of France's population of 42 million lived in these urban concentrations. The balance, who in most cases had never left their hometowns or villages, lived in rural areas. Altogether these contained less than 50,000 Jews, mainly French-born and assimilated.5 Thus, one of the most vociferous French antisemites of the interwar period, and the first commissioner general for Jewish questions, Xavier Vallat, could claim at the beginning of 1942 that he would never mention the Jewish question in his constituency in the Cevennes because the peasants would simply not understand what he was talking about.6 In trying to understand French public opinion about the Jews and Vichy's anti-Jewish legislation, it must be remembered that the majority of the French population in the South had had no contact with Jews before 1940. They, unlike the Parisians, looked on Jews more as biblical figures than as a twentieth-century people, The great exodus from the North, which followed France's military debacle, included a large number of Jews, both from Paris and its suburbs and from AlsaceLorraine. Unlike most of the gentile population, many of the Jews remained in the South throughout the war and did not return to the occupied territories. This was not only because their entry was forbidden by the Germans, but especially because the Jews themselves had no desire to return. According to the census of October 1940, there were 149,734 Jews in the Occupied Zone, whereas that of June 1941 found 140,000 Jews in the Unoccupied Zone.7 (Not all the Jews in camps were counted and not all Jews registered as such.) Significantly, there were now in the South over one hundred thousand refugee Jews. Although half of these were of East European or German origin, even more were not considered French by the local population. The constant clandestine migration of Jews southward, following each step taken against them by the MBF in Paris, brought the number of Jews in the South to more than two hundred thousand by the summer of 1942. From 1940 until the spring of 1942, Vichy's basic policy of legal discrimination and expropriation resulted in a steady worsening of the Jews' condition. Nevertheless, except for those foreigners interned in concentration camps, there seemed to be

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no great danger to their physical survival. The introduction of the yellow star (June 7, 1942) in the occupied territories, although appearing at first to affect only the Jews in the Occupied Zone, indicated a radical escalation of the anti-Jewish policy. A totally new situation was created in the country with the extensive roundups of foreign Jews in Paris (July 16-17, 1942), followed immediately by the deportations from the camps in the South at the beginning of August and by mass arrests in the larger cities of the Unoccupied Zone at the end of August. For the first time, a great many immigrant or refugee Jews appeared to face a real threat to their lives. These events were followed by a strong and openly negative reaction by the French public toward Vichy's policies. This is usually described as a turning point (revirement), marking a division between two distinct stages in the development of the antiJewish policies and in the public reactions related to them. This periodization raises two important issues with regard to popular opinion: 1. Was there a real turn in public opinion or was there, instead, a gradual change? 2. What were the distinctive characteristics of popular opinion during each of the two periods? Recent research sheds considerable light on these questions. As to the first one, the most authoritative study in the field is that of Marrus and Paxton, who claim that "July-August 1942 . . . marked a turning point in French public opinion." Henri Amouroux, who extensively quotes those whom he calls "the ordinary Frenchmen," concurs.8 Jean-Marie Mayeur suggests that for the churches, "a first period extends from the beginning of the Vichy regime to the spring of 1942, which constitutes an incontestable turning point."9 Mayeur thus seems to agree with Marrus and Paxton as well as Amouroux that there was a revirement, but dates it well before August. Claude Levy offers the slightly less defined opinion that "the non-communist Resistance . . . passed during this year [1942] from disapproval to active help for the persecuted people."10 Leo Hamon, a participant in the Resistance, testifies that ' 'things changed on the day that people saw the Jews with the yellow star."11 Both historian Levy and resister Hamon suggest dates prior to July-August. Hamon indicates a precise date, intended perhaps only for Paris and the Occupied Zone, whereas Levy speaks of a gradual development. But overall, no one challenges the theory of a revirement in spring-summer 1942. On the second question, Marrus and Paxton write that "a widespread hostility toward the Jews that was both sincere and homegrown" characterized the first period.12 Amouroux takes the same position and only Levy speaks of disapproval during this period (referring to resisters' attitudes, not to general public opinion). Likewise, in analyzing protest against anti-Jewish practices, Kedward argues that, "as with every element of protest in 1940-1942 it was not a general response, but a reaction of a minority, both of Jews and non-Jews, in the face of hostility, indifference, and submissiveness" among the non-resistant, general public.13 By way of contrast, the second period, certainly after August 1942, is characterized by all in terms of a widespread and outspoken denunciation of the German and Vichy policies.

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The most widely accepted thesis has two elements: (1) the general tone of public opinion before July-August 1942 was negative to the Jews, and especially so toward immigrants; (2) a turning point in French public opinion occurred owing to the large-scale roundups and deportations. In some cases the date for the change is as early as June or even the spring of 1942. The purpose of the present essay is to reexamine both propositions in the light of contemporary documentation. THE FIRST PERIOD A study of French public opinion has no alternative but to begin with Petain's image in 1940. The first period of Vichy is aptly characterized by Amouroux's titles, Quamnte millions de petainistes and Les beaux jours des collabos.14 The political support given to the sauveur de la France was virtually total, and Petain held unquestioned sway over French public opinion. The few small groups of French resisters were, for the most part, patriotic and anti-German. Thus, Petain was even portrayed by some of the first resisters as secretly cooperating with the British, and he was not clearly and openly opposed.15 Anti-Petainism was equated with antipatriotism. The Communists were an exception and opposed Vichy from the start, as did certain Catholic and Protestant groups of the Amitie chretien who disagreed with the pro-Petainist Catholic hierarchy.16 Despite the basic differences between them, these two groups gradually emerged in 1941 as the first anti-Nazi opposition. At the other extreme of French opinion and political attitudes were the collaborationist groups in Paris.17 Reflecting German influence, they gradually became increasingly anti-Petainist and criticized Vichy's attentisme ("wait-and-see") and "pro-Jewish policies." The anti-Jewish legislation in October 1940 was characteristic of Vichy's basic attitude to the Jewish question.18 The first law, the Statut des juifs, created a completely new situation for French Jewry by revoking the equality of citizenship that dated back to the Revolution. The immigrant Jews, defined as "aliens of Jewish race," were now a community of pariahs, completely lacking the normal protection of the law. At the same time, in keeping with Vichy's extreme xenophobia directed mainly, but not solely, against Jews, naturalizations were reexamined and often revoked. In the case of French and immigrant Jews, some consideration was given to veterans who had fought for France in the war of 191418 and in what was called the war of 1939-40, in keeping with Vichy and prewar French nationalist ideas. The anti-Jewish legislation of 1940 aroused neither strong antisemitic manifestations nor vigorous public opposition. The memoirs of some of the Resistance leaders, for example, make little reference to the Jews or to Vichy's legislation in this period. Reports of the prefects (see Appendix) sometimes mention popular reactions but never as a central issue. The department of the Ardeche reported that the Statut des juifs was favorably received by the population,19 whereas the departments of Lsere and Bouches-du-Rhone suggested that this new "statute had been long-anticipated and desired" and was generally approved. Popular reactions in other departments were much the same wherever the subject was mentioned.20


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Although general public opinion supported the legislation passively, in the southern departments aggressive antisemitic activities were undertaken by the Parti populairefra.nc.ais (PPF) of Jacques Doriot, which aimed at inciting anti-Jewish opinion even before publication of the Statut. These demonstrations were coordinated and conducted simultaneously in all the cities of the Mediterranean coast, where large numbers of Jewish refugees were concentrated. Although the majority of the population disapproved of the violence of this campaign, it was reported that people, nevertheless, complained of the presence of "too many strangers, especially of Jewish confession."21 In the spring of 1941 the first arrest by the Vichy authorities of some four hundred foreign Jews for "black marketeering" took place in Marseille, Nice and Cannes. According to reports, the public approved of this legal oppression on the grounds, for example, that "Marseille is invaded by Jews." Similar reports emanated from other southern cities, with no mention of any popular protest or resistance to these steps.22 The process of "aryanization" started in the South in July 1941. A typical reaction to it appears in the report of the Alpes-Maritimes' prefect, who cited general approval but indicated that ' 'the public would have unreservedly approved exceptions to the rule favoring several well-established enterprises in which the French of the city have retained commercial interests for several generations, and whose good reputation is known to all."23 The distinction drawn between native French and immigrant Jews was basic to both the Vichy legislation and public opinion. For instance, after the roundups in Paris in August 1941, when 4,230 Jews were arrested, a detailed report was drawn up of the opinion of Parisians, examined by arrondissement. Although they reportedly expressed deep sorrow for the fate of the French Jews, they were apparently unconcerned about the others.24 Similar sentiments were to be found in an analysis of the general situation of the Jews prepared by the Ministry of the Interior, based on reports from: Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne, Indre, Haute-Vienne, Basses-Pyrenees and other departments.25 The antisemitic Commissariat general aux questions juives (CGQJ [see Appendix]) began to submit reports in the second half of 1941. From the outset there are constant complaints of the uncooperative attitude of the non-Jewish population (referred to as "the Aryan people"). "The incomprehension, even the hostility of the Aryan people," were deemed to have made CGQJ's task difficult and often impossible. Similarly, it complained later about the uncooperative and hostile attitudes of French tribunals and some universities. The dominant impression given by the CGQJ reports is of a gentile population and some official bodies that were unwilling to cooperate in the enforcement of the anti-Jewish legislation.26 For example, in a report from Limoges, Joseph Antignac, one of the ablest and most antisemitic members of the CGQJ, who subsequently became its secretary general, complained that in Dordogne, "The resistance of the Jews is becoming stronger from day to day. Great numbers of Aryans, for various and deceptive reasons, sustain them more and more."27 If the CGQJ reports represent the attitudes of the most antisemitic segments of the population, the underground press gives voice to an opposing element. The first underground paper published in France after the German occupation was the Com-

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munist L'Humanite, illegal since September 1939.28 Other illegal papers, usually very modest in format, comprising only one or two typewritten pages, began to appear in December 1940. Usually only a few thousand copies were printed. These papers, produced by small and unconnected groups, all urged non-collaboration with the occupying force and called for general civil resistance. During the first period and until the beginning of 1942, most did not have a definite attitude toward Marshal Petain. In contrast, L'Humanite, which had a much larger circulation, maintained a rather ambiguous attitude to the German occupation until June 22, 1941 (the German invasion of the USSR), but it had a clear anti-Vichy attitude, just as Vichy had a strong anti-Communist policy. The underground press hardly reacted to the anti-Jewish legislation that included a second Statut des juifs (June 2, 1941), the numerus clausus (June 21, 1941), "aryanization" in both zones (July 22, 1941) and the steady incarceration, since 1940, in French concentration camps of some forty thousand Jews.29 The sporadic reactions cannot be explained on grounds of antisemitism: in some journals a number of Jews served as editors. The major exception to this pattern was the short-lived and Catholic-oriented La France continue, which consistently attacked Vichy and its anti-Jewish policies. While, however, in line with all underground papers, it accused Vichy of bowing to German dictates, there was no criticism of Vichy for conducting an independent antisemitic policy. In December 1941 the first German execution of French hostages took place and—as was highlighted by the official propaganda—all were Jews or Communists. La France continue reacted to the event, headlining its article, "The Execution of the Jewish Hostages."30 By way of contrast, L'Humanite, in its report, did not mention that the majority of the victims were Jews. Gradually, after March-April 1942, L'Humanite began to deal with Jewish issues with increasing frequency. That this occurred more than a month before the yellow star order was enforced indicates that it was not connected with developments in anti-Jewish policy. But only in May 1942 did the Communist paper publish its first full-length article on these matters, "Barbaric nazie."31 In contrast to the low-profile approach of L'Humanite to Jewish topics, the Communist L' Universite libre carried on an incessant campaign against Nazi racial theories and Vichy's anti-Jewish legislation.32 The underground paper most critical of racist antisemitism was Les cahiers du temoignage chretien, which began publication in November 1941. These two papers were primarily anti-Nazi, whereas most of the other underground publications were patriotically French and antiGerman in character. Thus, in its very first issue, Les cahiers du temoignage chretien proclaimed "the incompatibility of National-Socialism and Christianity," despite the silence of Pope Pius XII and the French bishops.33 Another exception to the general pattern in the underground press during this period was Les Cahiers, published by an important right-wing resistance group, the Organization civile et militaire (OCM). The first issue was a theoretical essay, including an entire chapter on the Jewish question. Seeing the Jews as an "unassimilable religious group," the paper proposed the institution, after the war, of a new civil status—non-Christian minority—very similar to the Jewish status under Vichy. 34 Interestingly, this paper, by no means pro-Jewish, lucidly discussed and


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assessed the gradual change in public opinion that was apparent toward the end of 1941. When the general measures began to be applied and were transferred from the level of theory to human relations, the indifference was transformed, except in the case of a few fanatics, into a certain disapproval.35

Some letters written in the period under discussion constitute another source of information. Most letters at our disposal in public archives denounce Jews, and the distinction between ideological involvement and economic competition or professional rivalry is not always clear. Neither is it clear how much of the antipathy should be ascribed to longstanding or recently aroused antisemitism and how much to other base motives. Thus far, little is known about the letters written by non-Jews to save Jews from concentration camps or from deportation. A number of such letters were written, some addressed to Petain—and the majority signed. A few came from firms writing on behalf of an employee and from unions on behalf of a member. One such letter, concerning Polish Jews interned in French camps, was written by the general secretary of the Union of Bakery Employees, who identified himself as a personal friend of Paul Marion, the Vichy minister of information, and as a "member of the Marshal's Central Committee for Social Propaganda for the Occupied Zone."36 For the most part, the non-antisemitic letters expressed general indignation at the antisemitic policies. Some were written on behalf of Jewish relatives, comrades-inarms, friends or well-liked doctors.37 Most of the writers, identifying themselves as Catholics or Protestants, seem to have been closer in their political views to Petain than to the Resistance. Like the underground press, the French people tended to clear the marshal of responsibility for the anti-Jewish policies. This misinterpretation was extraordinarily expressed by one woman who wrote: I do not think that the general public holds you responsible for it [the Statut of 1940] and I also think with many other Frenchmen that it was imposed upon you. This conviction is a source of relief for all of us, because the day of [the law's] enactment was a day of pain and shame for us.38

All these letters suggest a great naivete and a basic lack of awareness concerning the origin of the racist policies. If we assume that their writers were not among the most poorly informed persons in France, then naivete and ignorance must have been even more widespread among the public at large. Some of the pro-Jewish letters even contain expressions that in other contexts would be regarded as typically antisemitic. Statements such as, "If there is one Jew worthy of protection it is surely my brother-in-law" or "he does not have any particularly Jewish racial characteristics either physically or morally" frequently occur.39 THE SECOND PERIOD Immediately after the debacle, most Frenchmen predicted a German victory or a peace based on a compromise, although they certainly did not wish for either. Anti-

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German feeling was still more vivid than old or new anti-British sentiment. Germany's failure in the Battle of Britain was undoubtedly welcomed, but that did not create an extensive Gaullist reaction. Even the invasion of the USSR in June 1941 did not produce any obvious change in French public opinion, except, of course, among Communists. One of the Resistance papers actually welcomed it as a prelude to the complete destruction of the two dictatorships.40 The entry of the United States into the war in December 1941 gave the French, for the first time, cause to predict an Allied victory rather than a compromise. From this stage onward, the French appraisal of the balance of power, dating from the experience of the First World War, clearly changed.41 This was immediately followed in the first months of 1942 by important political changes, especially regarding the Jews. The change in direction indicated by the German policy of extermination—the Final Solution—after the Wannsee Conference (January 20, 1942), was of the utmost significance. In France the most important change was the return to power of Pierre Laval (April 16). This was quickly followed by the appointment of Rene Bousquet as secretary-general of the police (April 18) and of Louis Darquier de Pellepoix as commissioner for the Jewish question (May 6). In order to reestablish the appearance of an independent French police, Laval and Bousquet agreed to carry out the roundups of the alien Jews to be deported to the East.42 The German authorities had in December 1941 proposed the imposition of the yellow star for all Jews in both zones. Admiral Darlan had refused, arguing that the proposal "threatened to provoke a swing in favor of the Jews, who would be considered as martyrs." Surprisingly, Laval also refused, and Petain explained that it would not be "understood and accepted by the French."43 As is well known, the Germans went ahead on their own and imposed the yellow star in the occupied territories. For the first time, the prefects unanimously reported an adverse reaction. The Parisians protested against the badge conspicuously and rather provocatively.44 The strength of the reaction projected the already growing interest in the problem of Jewish persecution onto the front pages of most of the underground press, which emphasized that many Frenchmen expressed their solidarity with the Jews. Two explanations can be suggested for this change in the attitude of the underground press. The first, totally independent of the Jewish aspect, was a widespread disillusionment with Petain and the increasing support given to Charles de Gaulle in London.45 The second is connected with the return of Laval: resisters believed that they could advance their own cause by criticizing Laval for his anti-Jewish policies. If this is so, then it is highly possible that the change in the approach of the illegal press indirectly influenced public opinion in Paris in June 1942. Since this cannot be substantiated from existing sources, it must therefore be regarded as a hypothesis that requires further research. Whatever the reason, the apparent change of mood in May-June 1942 warrants emphasis. The German-French negotiations on the proposed deportation of the Jews took place during June 1942 after the negative popular reaction shown in Paris to the yellow star decree. These negotiations have been fully described by Marrus and Paxton, Klarsfeld, and others; our concern here, then, is with public opinion or rather Laval's expectations of how the public would respond. On the basis of the


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prefects' reports that feared a negative reaction to the deportation of French Jews, he had Bousquet suggest to Heydrich and Dannecker that only foreign Jews be deported, including children, from the Unoccupied Zone. Abetz supported Laval in a telegram to Berlin, arguing that French opinion would accept the deportation of immigrant Jews;46 but as we know, they were wrong. Although there were cases in which people, at great personal risk, helped Jews avoid arrest, there was no open public reaction to their mass arrests in Paris. The first significant open expression of public opposition to the roundups in the South occurred even before they had been completed. These spontaneous responses took Vichy completely by surprise. A curt letter from Nice dated August 25, 1942, is typical: Monsieur le Prefet, I have just learned that the refugee Jews are being handed over to Hitler for [deportation to] Poland—even the old, the women and children. I do not like the Jews. I do not like Hitler, but I am for the collaboration! This is not collaboration, this is slavery, this is inhuman! As a Frenchman of old stock, as a veteran of the front, as a Catholic, I implore you to stop this immediately! Yours, etc. [Signature]47

Similarly, even before the roundups had been completed, some police reports reflected popular disapproval, "In certain milieux there is even a certain revirement in the state of public opinion."48 The prefects of the South emphasized, above all, popular indignation that the Jews were being handed over to the Germans. Rather than a specifically pro-Jewish attitude, French opinion expressed a simple human sympathy for weak and vulnerable people. Expressions such as "even though one does not like the Jews" occur frequently in these reports.49 Most, for the first time, also stressed the important role played by Catholic and Protestant clergy in rescuing Jews. Disapproval of the roundups soon turned into more general criticism of the French government: Public opinion had been favorably disposed toward the government. Unfortunately, the actions taken at the end of August against the alien Jews compromised these results.50 Public opinion criticizes all the government's actions. The mass arrest of alien Jews remains the touchstone of these angry, hostile and sometimes ironic comments.51

These anti-Vichy tendencies were later heightened by food shortages and, above all, by the establishment of the Forced Labor Service (Service du travail obligatoire [STO]). Nevertheless, the spontaneous and widespread negative reaction to the roundups in August 1942 provided the first open manifestation of a significant breach between Vichy and French public opinion. Underground press comment highlighted the large-scale roundups of Jews by the French police and gendarmerie. Without exception, they all featured articles on the subject on their front pages, with such headlines as: "La victoire du Velodrome d'Hivef (referring to the bicycle stadium where the Jews of Paris were assembled), "Le martyre des juifs," "Paris livre aux SS," and "Chasse a 1'homme."52 In many cases they reported condemnations of the arrests and deportations by some of

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the leading bishops of the Catholic Church (e.g., Monsigneur Saliege of Toulouse, Cardinal Gerlier of Lyon and Monsigneur Theas of Montauban) and by Pasteur Boegner, head of the Protestant Church in France. With perhaps some exaggeration, these reports carried such headlines as: "L'Eglise contre I'etat," "Resistance du clerge" and "Resistance de I'eglise." Unfortunately, we cannot estimate the number of letters written to protest against the extradition of alien Jews. We can, however, cite representative examples of those found in the various archives. After the roundups in August 1942, a woman from Saint-Girons (Ariege) described how she saw ten buses collecting Jews who had immigrated to the region: All those who saw this scene were filled with shame and pity; even those who had [once] shouted the most, "Down with the Jews, death to the Jews," were moved to tears. But what we all felt was that France had condemned and dishonored herself by treating so infamously and cruelly people who believed they had found a haven in our country.54 Many other such letters were addressed to Petain, to Laval, to the prefects or to the CGQJ. A woman, writing to Petain from Nice, closed her letter with an underscored plea, "Let each child be returned to its mother!"55 From June 1942 onward, two papers, J'accuse and Fraternite, were published by the National Movement Against Racism, an underground inter-religious organization. These papers launched an information campaign about the mass extermination of Jews in Poland and called on the French people to help in rescuing Jews, especially children, from deportation. "Let each French family welcome a persecuted child," appeared as a slogan in almost every issue. These papers presented an analysis of French attitude to the Jewish question similar to the assessment made in Les Cahiers of the rightist resistance movement, the OCM: It was first the instinctive reaction of the ordinary people, the working classes. Later on the authoritative voice of the intellectuals joined this unanimous chorus of workers, and finally both the Catholic and Protestant churches.56

Thus, it was generally thought that popular reaction preceded the response of the churches, and generated the pro-Jewish attitudes. The National Movement Against Racism, some of whose members were Jewish Communists, was among the groups that quickly shifted from addressing public opinion to organizing rescue activities. It illustrates the logical sequence from initial protest against deportation to active efforts, a phenomenon that expanded greatly in 1943-44. The agents of the CGQJ intensified their criticism of the Catholic Church after August 1942. Several critically reported the protests by the bishops and even attacked some prelates who had remained silent such as Monsigneur Remond, the Bishop of Nice, who was accused of being the "champion defender of the Jews." The complaint that Remond had ordered a campaign of ostracism against the CGQJ may have been somewhat exaggerated, but it was certainly correct that many Jews received false baptismal certificates thanks to the bishop.57 The October report of the CGQJ from its Vichy office, based on seven regional reports, presented a general review of public opinion in the autumn of 1942:


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Led by the high clergy, a large part of the French population takes exception to the actions of last August; [this demonstrates that] the people of France know nothing about the Jewish question.58 The negative attitude of the churches to the and-Jewish policy was cited as underlying the public sympathy for Jews. Only a few reports echoed a different tune. AntiJewish sentiments were registered in Limoges, in the various cities of the HauteSavoie, the Dordogne and elsewhere, where the Jews were commonly accused of black marketeering, not working, or living luxuriously in expensive alpine hotels.59 Developing discord between the agents of the CGQJ and the other state functionaries also reflected trends in public opinion. This disagreement was sometimes paranoically perceived by the CGQJ agents as if they themselves, not the Jews, were being persecuted. Rebellious sentiments were expressed by the delegate of Toulouse, who wrote to Antignac, secretary-general of the CGQJ in Vichy, that he had heard that the prefect destroyed the documents of alien Jews. If such orders were given to him by the prefect, he would refuse to obey them.60 The Union frangaise pour la defense de la race (LJFDR), for all practical purposes the propaganda division of the CGQJ, consistently strove to recapture public support for racist antisemitism. In addition to what they published in the existing journals, the CGQJ and the French Union broadcast for fifteen minutes, three days a week, on both Radio Paris and the Vichy-controlled Radio Nationale. Though the substance of these messages was simplistic and unimaginative, they had some impact, as seen in the extensive correspondence that developed around them. Nevertheless, even the sponsoring organizations judged the overall results negatively.61 On the intellectual level, the propaganda agents received copies of a series of lectures by "scholars" given to the UDFR at its Paris headquarters.62 The most outstanding achievement of the antisemitic propaganda was the establishment of a chair in Jewish History, to which Abel Bonard, Vichy minister of education, appointed Henri Labrou. His lectures drew sparse attendance, however, and the courses were soon stopped. The underground press reported them under such headlines as, "Science Against Racism" and "Antisemitism at the Sorbonne" and expressed the following view: "One gets the philosophy one deserves. The National Revolution has racism . . . this "philosophy" of brutes and gorillas." Vichy had no real control over the doctrines of the UDFR, and it became simply an additional vehicle for the expression of German policy. Because the French believed, and wanted to believe, that the anti-Jewish policy was adopted only because of German pressure, this propaganda had no chance of success. In October 1943 the Germans closed the UDFR, signifying the total failure of this intensive effort. Only a meek propaganda service of the CGQJ continued to disseminate antisemitic books, pamphlets and radio programs in addition to what was published in all the Paris newspapers.64 During the second half of 1942 the Jewish question figured prominently in the media and a clear struggle against antisemitic propaganda was undertaken in the underground press. After the beginning of 1943, although the subject did not

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completely disappear, it was no longer a dominant topic, with the exception of J'accuse, Fraternite and other similar papers. The underground press was filled with news of the war, food shortages, problems of the STO and German actions against the Resistance. In 1943 and 1944 the Jews were not mentioned at all in the summary report prepared by the Interior Ministry. This was due, of course, to the fact that Jews were rarely mentioned any more in the prefect's reports. For information on the Jews or on public opinion regarding their fate, we must go to the local police reports. These provided detailed statistics on the arrest of the Jews by the Germans or by the milice.65 The public rarely blamed the French government, reacting instead against the Germans and the New Order. Nevertheless, in one of the last reports of the CGQJ we read, ' 'One could estimate the number [sic] of pro-Jewish Aryans to be about 90 percent."66 CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN FRENCH PUBLIC OPINION As we have seen, there was a discernible evolution of French opinion over two clearly distinct periods. It should also be recalled that the notion of a revirement in public opinion appeared in contemporary reports. Does this contemporary perception of a sudden shift in August 1942 prove the theory of recent scholarship that a turning point, in fact, occurred in that month? The facts need to be analyzed in chronological order. The first legislation provoked neither mass opposition nor popular antisemitic manifestations. Yet, demonstrations organized by the PPF and later by other antisemitic organizations were often publicly criticized. The reports of the CGQJ consistently complained of negative public attitudes to its activities. Police reports from Paris in May 1941 also noted some negative popular reactions. (Reports on "aryanization" are ambiguous: popular sympathy did not normally extend to alien Jews.) A degree of popular opposition to the implementation of anti-Jewish policies was also reported in the OCM paper, Les Cahiers, in the second half of 1941. Similar opinions were expressed in J' accuse in 1942. Signed letters written by non-Jews also provide evidence of disapproval. Do all these various sources refute the prefects' reports that suggest quiet, general support for Vichy's anti-Jewish legislation? Satisfactory content analysis of very different sources demands careful evaluation and interpretation. Most of the prefects obtained the information for their monthly reports from the sub-prefects, police reports, the service technique and several similar sources. They never initiated the collection of public opinion and thus received information only about those who had voiced an opinion in some way. Generally, people expressed opinions on problems of importance or on those that concerned them directly. Vichy's anti-Jewish legislation for most of the French was certainly not one of these subjects. Neither was it one of the main preoccupations of the prefect. The available sources of information about public reaction to antiJewish measures before August 1942 were therefore meager, and this fact is reflected in the prefects' reports. The CGQJ delegates are the only source for whom the Jewish question was the


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main, or even the only, preoccupation. Even if we entertain doubts about their accuracy and allow for exaggerations, we cannot reasonably conclude that simultaneous reports from Toulouse, Nice and Clermont-Ferrand reflected a totally nonexistent situation. Furthermore, we must take account of the sources' differential treatment of the views of the great silent majority of the "indifferent" Frenchmen who had no opinion on the Jews. The prefect regarded all those who did not oppose a specific policy as loyal Petain supporters. For the CGQJ, all those who were not ready to help actively (e.g., by informing on Jews) were Aryans who "do not understand anything of the Jewish question." Although the prefects report more accurately on the manifest state of public opinion at any point in time, from the reports of the CGQJ we learn a great deal about trends, whether open or latent. Rather than being contradictory, the two main sources of reports, it seems, complement each other. What bears reconsideration is their interpretation. What is the meaning of the claim that public opinion in 1940-41 supported Vichy's antiJewish legislation? Taking into consideration the wide popularity of Petain and the meager interest in the Jewish question, it would seem logical to assume that the public's stance is to be explained by its general support for all of Petain's legislation and policies during that period. It would then be correct to conclude that the majority of the French people supported undemocratic and authoritarian (including anti-Jewish) legislation and that it renounced, temporarily at least, the traditionally liberal values of a republican society. But, by the same token, it would be incorrect to assert that the majority was actively antisemitic. Laval, the Vichy government and Abetz all concluded, however, that they had popular support for the deportation of immigrant Jews, and they were proved wrong. Does this not suggest a need to reevaluate their interpretation of their sources? In 1942 Petain-worship was already weakening. Laval was never a popular prime minister, and his return to power did not engender great enthusiasm, especially as it was so obviously the result of German pressure. With Vichy's popularity on the decline, it became easier to question its anti-Jewish policy. It was at just that time that the yellow star was imposed in Paris, representing a conspicuous hardening of German policy. Public disagreement with the decree may have been more readily expressed because it was in response to an act of the occupying power; nevertheless, the openness of the protest was unprecedented. Although not involving great masses of people, it did include people who had not previously shown any commitment on the Jewish issue. The deportations, as a totally new policy introduced by Vichy at German prompting, generated a new level of public response. This was clearly an important turning point in the Nazis' anti-Jewish policies. The French public could not have known at the time that this was the beginning of the Final Solution, but the observable change was sufficient to serve as the object of popular resentment. Thus, it was not the public's opinion that changed in July-August 1942, but the situation. It is inaccurate, therefore, to refer to a change—retirement—in public opinion. Indeed, all sources, including some of the letters that protested against the deportations, continued to display a certain tendency toward antisemitic prejudice. As

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Marrus and Paxton observe, "Vichy's own anti-Jewish program did not lose its constituency overnight in August 1942."67 Nevertheless, it had been considerably weakened. It would therefore seem to be correct to emphasize the degree of continuity between the spring and summer of 1942 and to deemphasize—but certainly not ignore—the apparent changes that took place between the two periods. During the first period only those Frenchmen who knew Jews at least superficially—mainly in the cities and because of family, commercial or intellectual contacts—had an opinion on the Jewish question, and these were a small minority. Some were traditional or new antisemites, others were philosemites. The former, for obvious reasons, were more vocal than the latter. It is impossible to make any statistical assessment of the size of each of these groups. What we can say is that the number of active antisemites was never high and decreased constantly; the number of philosemites, also small, increased without ever becoming a majority, even after August 1942. The first overt resistance to the anti-Jewish policy came from people who identified themselves as Christians and from Communist intellectuals. They reacted before any of the anti-German French patriots, who represented the French republican traditions. The great majority of the French people, according to Kedward, was indifferent and submissive. It supported Petain and accepted his leadership with unconditional confidence, seeing no alternative to the projected National Revolution, of which anti-Jewish policy was an integral part. It accepted the first stages of this legislation passively, and it even supported them so long as they were perceived as abstract, marginal and impersonal. The first period was also characterized by the clear distinction in French opinion between French and alien Jews. Passive indifference to the incarceration of the latter was an expression of objective support for the government. These were the Jews with whom the gentile population had had the least prior contact. Only the underground press systematically refrained from making this distinction. The general belief that the anti-Jewish policy was imposed on Vichy by the Germans made this flexible attitude of distinction between "our Jews" and "foreigners" even easier. The popular reactions of July-August 1942 developed out of this situation. The broad masses of the population gradually opposed antisemitic practices when these became more conspicuous, brutal and inhuman and involved mass deportation. These reactions are not an inexplicable volte-face, but a logical reaction to three developments: the decreasing popularity of Laval's government; the open brutality of the roundups, affecting women and children; and the deportations. Pity and compassion mixed with injured national pride dominated all reactions. Vichy was accused of inhumanity and blamed for its surrender to German dictates. In the final analysis, the attitude toward the Jews was not one of the most important elements creating this relatively new climate of opinion, and it is the component that changed the least. Some of the first overt public reactions to the roundups preceded by several days the statements issued by the bishops, which were immediately and widely published and which weighed particularly heavily in official Vichy thinking. They certainly strengthened and deepened the pro-Jewish attitudes, but did not create them. The


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churches' intervention was also extensively reported by the underground press (even L'Humanite) as effective propaganda against Vichy. The underground papers called for a more general resistance, seeing in the reaction to the roundups of Jews in the Unoccupied Zone the first important breach between Vichy and the French public. From September to December 1942 the Jews became a central political issue: Jewish problems were extensively treated in prefects' reports and in Resistance papers, corresponding with the intensity of the racist antisemitic propaganda. The widespread, open and nearly unanimous opposition to the deportations was a first breach in public support of Vichy that soon led to others. As Kedward has remarked, "the anger against the antisemitism of Vichy was one more motivating force leading to opposition."68 The change in public opinion had also had an impact on the Jews. Although the widespread public reaction was short, it had longer-term effects. Laval's readiness to collaborate in the Final Solution was shaken. In 1943 he refused to denaturalize the Jews and often withheld the cooperation of the French police in roundups. Jewish rescue organizations developed after August 1942, often with non-Jewish support and collaboration. Many French people helped to hide and save Jews during the following years. The clear expression of French public opinion was the starting point and one of the central elements in a multi-faceted development that contributed to the survival of 250,000 Jews in France. APPENDIX: A NOTE ON SOURCES Research into French wartime public opinion is particularly problematic as there were no public opinion polls, the press was controlled and free political activities were banned. The usual sources such as radio, theater, cinema and even letters to the press offer the researcher of a society under an authoritarian regime such as Vichy France no assistance. Vichy created a centralized office of information and used political censorship in order to control public opinion. There were no opportunities for open dissent. At the same time, the regime had created efficient mechanisms for keeping itself constantly informed of the state of public opinion. The main mechanism was based on the prefects' monthly reports, which were the central government's primary source of information. These were based on multiple local sources, prepared twice-monthly or weekly and sometimes even daily, the most important source being an extensive covert postal and telephone surveillance system.69 Similar information was contained in reports prepared for the prefect by police chiefs of towns and counties, the Surete nationale, some regional commanders of the army and certain sub-prefects. These reports, based on several thousand examples, contain copies of entire letters (or long excerpts) as well as transcripts of telephone conversations and are a representative and enlightening primary source for the study of public opinion. The conclusions of the monthly reports of each prefect to Vichy generally provide an honest reflection of public sentiment as attested to by occasional unpleasant remarks about the government. The reports bear all the hallmarks of an apolitical, bureaucratic approach to the assigned task. Totally different in character are the official reports of the regional delegates of the CGQJ. These professional antisemites reported on public reactions to the anti-Jewish policies as an integral part of their activity. Their sources cannot be checked and their judgments very often

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appeal" to be either personal impressions or drawn from anonymous informants.70 The antisemitic propaganda organizations are similar, a typical source being the publications and internal protocols and correspondence of the UFDR. Although formally established in May 1942, it was based on the Institut d'etude aux questions juives, that had existed since May 1941.71 Obviously, these sources represented the views of extreme antisemites and, unlike the prefects' reports, no claims can be made for their objectivity. Nevertheless, these reports must be considered because those who wrote them were directly and constantly concerned with public reaction to the anti-Jewish policies. Undoubtedly, they were the best informed and the most interested in this question. Private letters written in this period are another important source of information, and they were abundantly used by the prefects and their subordinates. We can distinguish between three types of letters based on contents or on destination. Among letters addressed to the authorities, letters of denunciation against Jews were the most numerous, but there was also a smaller number of signed or anonymous letters that were favorable to the Jews.72 We also have access to those private letters that were intercepted and copied by the postal censors, who were euphemistically called technical control. Some letters of denunciation have been published, but these have not been systematically analyzed and therefore have rarely been used for this article. On the other hand, although the pro-Jewish letters are few in number, they can be considered sincere and reliable, especially when signed. The state-controlled press is of little assistance in providing information either from Paris or from the Unoccupied Zone, even though its task was to create public opinion. The underground press, on the other hand, certainly expressed the free opinions of its writers. Furthermore, it was produced by politically oriented resisters who used it to appeal to French opinion. The illegal journals, reflecting the views of their contributors and the range of issues on which they appealed to a public of potential resisters, are one of the rare sources available during the period that is unquestionably not antisemitic.73 Finally, it is very difficult to generalize about memoirs and testimonies. Occasionally, however, an author's ability to foresee developments and to summarize trends provides additional useful source material.74 Lacking the normal mechanisms of a democratic system, authoritarian governments seek to establish substitutes to enable them to keep informed of a public opinion that is otherwise repressed.75 Relative to research on other authoritarian states such as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, assessing public opinion in Vichy France is somewhat easier. The sources are more extensive and more diverse; reports prepared not only by a party apparatus but by the civil administration are available; some sources cover the entire period, which was relatively short. Last but not least, in France, even under Vichy, French people dared, and often did, express their true opinions without incurring too much risk. Because each individual source of information poses problems and difficulties in analysis, and is subject to variant interpretations, I sought to neutralize these by simultaneous use of multiple sources. This enabled me to describe tendencies in public opinion without quantifying them. The conclusions must therefore remain tentative and suggestive, and somewhat impressionistic. Nevertheless, we can in this way establish the existence of a public opinion with some assurance, even if we cannot establish its precise limits or determine exactly the size of the population involved.

Notes 1. Among the most recent studies that also include bibliographic data and information on public opinion arc: Michael R. Marriis and Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews


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(New York: 1981); Georges Wellers, Andre Kaspi and Serge Klarsfeld (eds.), La France et la question juive, 1940-1941 (Paris: 1981); Henri Amouroux, La Grande histoire des frangais sous I'occupation, 8 vols. (Paris: 1976-84); Serge Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwitz (Paris: 1983). 2. Eberhard Jaeckel, La France dans I'Europe de Hitler (Paris: 1968); Lucien Steinberg, Les Allemands en France (Paris: 1980), 205-227; Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago: 1981), 389-421, For sources, see Lucien Steinberg, Les autorites allemandes en France occupee, CDJC (ed.) [Centre de documentation juive contemporaine] (Paris: 1966). The origins and development of the Final Solution policy is a major question debated in the historiography of the Shoah and the Third Reich. The most comprehensive and recent surveys on this can be found in Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship (London: 1985), 82-105; Christopher R. Browning, Fateful Months (New York and London: 1985), 8-38. 3. On Vichy's Jewish policy, see Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944 (New York: 1972), 173-180; on the National Revolution, see ibid., 136-233. Henri Michel describes the situation: "La defaite portait les antisemites frangais au pouvoir. . . . Mais les antisemites fran§ais devaient desormais compter avec 1'occupant nazi et leur attitude antijuive cessait d'etre une vue de 1'esprit pour devenir un element des rapports politiques entre le Reich et la France vaincue" (Vichy, annee 40 [Paris: 1966], 141). 4. Up to 1 June 1942 the French government published sixty laws and decrees concerning the Jews in France (exclusive of special decrees for Algeria and other French territories). After that date there were only six more in 1942, six in 1943 and three in 1944, see Les juifs sous l'Occupation, recueil des textes officiels frangais et allemandes, 194011944, CDJC (ed.) (Paris: 1945, 1982). 5. The population in the Seine Department, including Paris, was 4,960,000 (all data rounded up to 10,000); in the two Rhine Departments, including the cities of Strasbourg and Mulhouse, 1,120,000. The population of a few large cities was: Marseille—910,000; Lyon—570,000; Bordeaux—260,000; Nice—240,000; Cannes—50,000. See Resultats statistiques du recensement de la population, effectue le 8 Mars 1936 (Paris: 1938), 46-47. There are no reliable statistics on the Jewish population under the Third Republic because this question was never asked in the censuses. In many important cities in the South, there were no more than a few Jewish families; in most of the small towns or villages, there were none. For estimates see David H. Weinberg, Community on Trial: The Jews of Paris in the 1930s (Chicago: 1977), 1-10; Paula Hyman, From Dreyfus to Vichy (New York: 1979), 63-88. 6. Xavier Vallat, Le Probleme juif, Conference prononcee a I'ecole national des cadres civiques, 1 (AN W HI 211). Phillippe Erlanger tells in his memoirs that his landlady in the Poitou region told him in June 1940, "Moi, un juif, je ne sais pas ce que c'est. On n'en a jamais va a Dissay, alors je n'ai rien contre" (La France sans etoile [Paris: 1974]), 61-63. Such examples are frequent. On French public opinion during the interwar period, see Ralph Schor, L Opinion frangaise et les etrangers en France, 1919-1939 (Paris: 1985), esp. 175197, 613-626. 7. On the census, see Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwitz, 19—25. Many Jews did not return to Paris in August-September 1940. Not having sound figures, but relying on indirect sources and on the census, I tend to estimate that some hundred thousand Jews left the capital during the exodus. 8. Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, 270; Amouroux, La Grande Histoire, vol. 2, Quarante millions de petainistes, 308-310. 9. In the CDJC conference proceedings, La France et la question juive, 148 (see n. 1). 10. Ibid., 299. 11. Ibid., 125. 12. Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews 179. 13. H. R. Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France: A Study of Ideas and Motivation in the Southern Zone 1940-1942 (Oxford: 1978), 164. 14. Henri Amouroux's work (see nn. 1, 22) gives an excellent insight into public opinion even if his methods are popular and his sources not always noted. For our present interest, the most important sections of La Grande Histoire . . . are in vol. 2 (Quarante

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millions de petainistes, June 1940-June 1941); vol. 3 (Les Beaux Jours des collabos, June 1941-June 1942); vol. 4. (LePeuple reveille, June 1940-April 1942); vol. 5 (LesPassions et les haines, April-December 1942). In Les passions, Amouroux summarizes his point of view on the events concerning the Jews, 149-345. 15. Paxton, Old Guard and New Order, 39-50; Kedward, Resistance, 22-64. Henri Michel, Histoire de la Resistance en France (1940-1944) (Paris: 1972), 16-33, speaks of the "mythe Petain" that existed, especially in the South. The most extensive book on the subject is Henri Nogueres, Histoire de la Resistance en France de 1940 a 1945, 5 vols. (Paris: 1967-1981). See vol. 1, 95; vol. 2, 56-58. 16. Henri Cadier, La Calvaire d'lsrael et la solidarite chretienne (Geneva and Paris: 1945); Jeanne Merle d'Aubigne and Violette Mouchon, Les Clandestins de Dieu: CIMADE 1939-1945 (Paris: 1968); Pierre Bolle, "Les Protestants frangais et leurs eglises pendant la seconde guerre modiale," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 26 (1979), 286-297. On the churches' attitude in general, see Jacques Duquesne, Les catholiques francais sous l'occupation (Paris: 1966), 250-257; Xavier de Montclos et al. (eds.), Eglises et chretiens dans la deuxieme guerre mondiale, 2 vols. (Lyon: 1978, 1982); Wellers, Kaspi and Klarsfeld La France et la question juive, 143-260. 17. Pascal Ory, Les Collaborateurs (Paris: 1976). 18. CDJC, Les Juifs sous I'occupation, 19-22. 19. Archives nationales (AN), Fl CIII-1137, report of November 1940. The department of Ardeche in the Cevennes, where Vallat was deputy (see n. 6), is of special interest. Many Jews were saved there after 1942, mainly by Protestant peasants. From this example it also appears that the favorable acceptance of legislation (according to the report) does not prove that the majority of the population was antisemitic. I have received important information from M. Jacques Poujol concerning the departments of Lozere and Ardeche. I express my gratitude to him. 20. For the department of Isere, AN, Fl CIII-1185, report of 1 November 1940. From Marseille, Archives departementales des Bouches-du-Rhone [hereafter cited as ADBR], M.6.11055. The report was prepared for the prefect by the Commission de controle postal interieur, Marseille, for the period of 11-20 November 1940. This is one of the six different sources this prefect used. For further prefects' reports after the Statut des juifs, see Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, 181-182. 21. Archives departmentales des Alpes Maritimes [hereafter cited as ADAM], Fonds du cabinet du prefet, Divers-36. ADBR, M.6.11056, report from Toulon, 20 August 1940. It was prepared for the prefect by the local Deuxieme Bureau and based on information from a one-time member of the PPF. 22. ADBR, M.6.11056, Direction de controle postal interieur for the period of 16-30 April 1941. See also the police report for the mayor of Cannes, August 1941, ADAM, Cabinet du prefet, Divers-42. Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, 132. 23. ADAM, Fonds du cabinet du prefet, not classified, report of 31 December 1941. 24. Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwitz, 25-28. 25. ADBR, M.6.1112bis. 26. CDJC, LXXXIX-15A, LXXXIX-109. The French tribunals were very often attacked by the CGQJ delegates. From Marseille the delegate wrote, "Notre legislation est detruite en grande partie par les decisions des tribunaux. . . ." (4 December 1942, AN, AJ38-289); see also AJ38-258, AJ38-261, AJ38-262, AJ38-265, AJ38-3814, AJ383596. 27. AN, AJ38-258, report from 26 May 1942. 28. L'Humanite clandestine, 1939-1945, 2 vols. (Paris: 1975). 29. Asher Cohen, "La Presse clandestine face a la question juive de 1940 a 1942," Le Monde Juif 117 (1985), 1-17. 30. La France continue, 31 December 1941. 31. L' Humanite, 1 May 1942. [Special number.] See also Annie Kriegel, "La resistance communiste," in La France et la question juive, 345-370. 32. L'Universite libre first appeared in November 1940, with Jacques Solomon, a


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Jewish Communist, as its first editor. Solomon's Jewishness cannot on its own explain the policy of the paper. There were some—or many—Jews on the staffs of most of the underground papers, but this had no influence at all on their policies. 33. Renee Bedarida, Les armes de I'esprit: Temoignage chretien (1941-1944) (Paris: 1977); Frangois Delpech, "La persecution des juifs et I'amitie chretienne," in Eglises et Chretiens, vol. 1, 143-179; ibid., vol. 2, 257-310. 34. Les Cahiers, Etudes pour une revolution franqaise, no. 1 (July 1942), 125-187; Arthur Calmette, L'O.C.M., organisation civile etmilitaire (Paris: 1961); Claude Bellanger, Histoire generale de la presse franqaise, 4 vols. (Paris: 1975), vol. 4, 163-165. 35. Les Cahiers, no. 1 (July 1942), 170-171. 36. CDJC, CIX-7, from 27 June 1941. 37. Asher Cohen, " 'Pour les juifs,' des attitudes philosemites sous Vichy," Pardes 1 (1985), 141-142. 38. AN, AJ38-67, Nlmes, 21 January 1941. She wrote regarding the Statut des juifs that "sa promulgation a ete pour beaucoup un jour de douleur et de honte." 39. AN, AJ38-6, 67. 40. Liberte 30 June 1941. 41. Numerous prefects mention this in their reports. See AN,F1 CIII-1137, 1153, 1158 during the first months of 1942. 42. Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, 217-301; Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwitz, 39-162, 195-253. 43. Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, 235-237. 44. Georges Wellers, L'Etoile jaune a l'heure de Vichy (Paris: 1973); Leon Poliakov, L'Etoile jaune (Paris: 1949); Alice Courouble, Amie des juifs (Paris: 1946). 45. Kedward, Resistance, 118-149, 210-215; Michel, Histoire de la Resistance (1940-1944), 41-52; Nogueres, Histoire de la Resistance 1940 a 1945, vol. 2, 301-487. 46. On the negotiations, see Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, 241-249. Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwitz, 63-117. In the French cabinet meetings both Petain and Laval cited public opinion as an argument to justify the deportation of foreign rather than French Jews (ibid., 221, 232-233, 244). See also Raymond Tournoux, LeRoyaume d'Otto, France 1939-1945 (Paris: 1982), 167-190. The telegram of Abetz, IMT, NO-183, Green Series, vol. 13, 235. 47. ADAM, 166.W.12. 48. Ibid., Nice, 26 August 1942. 49. AN, Fl CIII-1137, report of the prefect of Ardeche, August 1942. See also excerpts of twenty-seven reports of prefects from 1 September 1942 in Klarsfeld, VichyAuschwitz, 383-391. 50. AN, Fl CIII-1183, report of the prefect of the Rhone, 5 September 1942. 51. ADBR, M.6.11058, Commission de controle postal, Marseille, 30 September 1942. 52. Liberation (zone Nord), no. 85, July 1942; Le Populaire, 15 October 1942; Le Franc-Tireur, no. 6, June 1942; Liberation (zone Sud), 24 June 1942. 53. Liberation (zone Nord), 25 September, 2 October and 23 October 1942; Le Populaire, 15 October 1942. The public intervention of some of the bishops is widely known and all the texts are published. Most recently, see Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwitz, 355, 364, 379, 405, 412-413. On the churches, see n. 16. 54. AN, AJ38-6, from 30 August 1942. 55. CDJC, CIX-37, from 1 September 1942. 56. J'accuse, 10 October 1942. On the Mouvement nationale contre le racisme, see La Presse antiraciste sous l'occupation hitlerienne, (UJRE, [ed.]) (Paris: 1950), 257-329. 57. AN, AJ38-244, report of the Section d'enquete et de controle (SEC) de Nice, 30 September 1942. On the bishop of Nice, see Ralph Schor, Monsigneur Paul Remond, un eveque dans le siecle (Nice: 1984), 107-126. 58. AN, AJ38-244, report of the director of the SEC for the Unoccupied Zone, Vichy, 6 October 1942. See also reports of the SEC for 1942, AN, F7-14887.

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59. AN, AJ38-243, 3598, reports of local delegates of the CGQJ. 60. AN, AJ38-230, report of the delegate of Toulouse, 15 December 1942. 61. See internal reports of the UFDR, AN, CJ-1392. 62. Contents of all the courses given are kept in AN, CJ-1390. Some of the opening lectures were published in La question juive en France el dans le monde, no. 9; Ethnie franqais, no. 8. 63. Socialisme et liberte 1 December 1942, 1 January 1943; see also L'Universite libre, 28 December 1942. 64. Paxton, Vichy, France: Old Guard, 309-326; Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, 294-301; Amouroux, La grande histoire . . . , vol. 5, Les Passions, 349— 529; Joseph Billig, Le Commissariat general aux questions juives, 3 vols. (Paris: 1955, 1957, 1960), vol. 2, 330-338. 65. ADAM, 166.W.1-3. 66. AN, AJ38-244, report from Montpelier, 1 August 1944. 67. Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, 276. 68. Kedward, Resistance, 164, 184. 69. See the first important study that used the prefects' reports extensively: Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, 1982. The authors did not use the local reports presented to the prefects. See also Roderick Kedward and Roger Austin, Vichy France and Resistance: Culture and Ideology (London: 1985), 13-36. 70. Vichy created the CGQJ by special legislation in March 1941. Its main task was to advise on anti-Jewish legislation and to execute the government's policy. The agents of CGQJ were professional antisemites who gathered firsthand information on general public opinion about all aspects of the Jewish question. In many provincial towns, they were authorized to listen to telephone conversations or to receive briefings from the postal censorship authorities. Billig, Le Commissariat general; Asher Cohen, "Le Peuple aryen vu par le commissariat general aux questions juives," Revue d'histoire la 2e guerre mondiale 141 (1986), 45-58. 71. The Institut d'etude aux questions juives, an apparently unofficial association, was set up in June 1941 on German initiative and with German finance to counterbalance the antiGerman, antisemitic first commissioner for Jewish questions, Xavier Vallat, in matters of propaganda. It published journals and organized lectures and an exhibition imported from Germany, "La France et lesjuifs," in Paris and Bordeaux. Under the second commissioner, the pro-German Darquier de Pellepoix, the CGQJ established a racist propaganda association, the UFDR, with Darquier himself as its first president. The Institut d'etude was fused with the Institut d'antropo-sociologie of Vacher de Lapouge and became a subdivision of the UFDR with the name Institut d'etude aux questions juives et ethno-raciales (IEQJER). The racist professor of anthropology, Georges Montandon, was named director. Most of the relevant documents can be found in AN, CJ-1389-1397, WIII.142-3, WIII-168, WIII-830. See also Billig, L'Institut d'etude aux questions juives, inventaire commente (Paris: 1974). 72. Some letters of denunciation were published: David Rousset, Le pitre ne rit pas (Paris: 1983); Andre Halimi, La delation sous l'occupation (Paris: 1983). On letters written in favor of Jews, see Asher Cohen, "Pour les juifs," 138-149. At the time, I used 152 letters found in various other archives, mainly in those of the departments of the South. Some of these were quoted in this essay. 73. Bellanger, Presse clandestine, 1940-1944 (Paris: 1961); idem, Histoire generale, vol. 4, 97-176; Henri Michel, Les Courants de pensee de la resistance (Paris: 1962); Dominique Veillon, Le Franc-Tireur (Paris: 1977). 74. For the most extensive bibliography of published memoirs, see Klarsfeld, VichyAuschwitz, 533-538. Many unpublished testimonies, relating personal experiences are kept in the Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem; in the Institute of Contemporary Jewry (Project I, nos. 1-67), The Hebrew University, Jerusalem; and in the CDJC, Fonds Anny Latour. For some of the leaders of the French resistance, see Henri Frenay, The Night Will End (New York: 1976); Christian Pineau, La simple verite (1940-1945) (Paris: 1960).


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75. On public opinion research and the problems of sources and methods, see Aryeh Unger, The Totalitarian Party: Party and People in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia (Cambridge: 1974), 221-262; Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria, 1933-1945 (Oxford: 1983), 1-10; O. D. Kulka and Aron Rodrigue, "The German Population and the Jews in the Third Reich," Yad Vashem Studies 16 (1984), 421-435.

Leo Baeck, Nahum Goldmann and the Money from Germany (A Document) Yeshayahu A. Jelinek (BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV)

During the twelve years of Nazi government in Germany, the local Jewish population was decimated. Some Jews escaped to the free countries, but very few survived in Germany or returned from the extermination camps. After the war a part of the remnant stayed on and were reinforced somewhat by those displaced persons (DPs) who settled in Germany, leading to a certain revival of Jewish communal life there. Those who escaped before the outbreak of the war to the United States, Palestine, the United Kingdom and elsewhere organized themselves into fraternal organizations such as the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe (United States), the Association of Emigrants from Central Europe (Palestine) and the Council for the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Jews from Germany (Britain). The latter organization was later presided over by Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck, formerly chief rabbi of the city of Berlin, and a survivor of Theresienstadt, who subsequently came to England and was internationally recognized as the leading religious and public figure of German Jewry. After the war, the various fraternal organizations, together with the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland (Central Council of German Jews)—which represented the Jews living in Germany—began to look after the specific and diverse interests of German Jews and German Jewry all over the world. Material reconstruction and the recovery of lost property headed the list of these interests. But in this field of material claims against Germany they were not alone, as international Jewish organizations and the State of Israel also set out to recover and rescue Jewish property left in Germany and to use it principally for the rehabilitation of victims of the Nazi regime and for the development of the new Jewish state. Thus a clash of interests developed, with some segments of German Jewry and certain of their organizations on one side, and the international Jewish bodies such as the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the World Jewish Congress and the State of Israel on the other. This clash was multi-faceted. On the one hand, it revived the old controversy between the approach that stressed universal Jewish solidarity and that of German nationalists who happened to be Jewish by religion. On the other hand, this was an entirely new debate over who were the rightful heirs of German Jewry: the remnant, whether in Germany or abroad, or the Jewish people at large. Several other related 236

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issues were involved: whether Jews should stay in Germany at all, how Jews in general and German Jews in particular should treat the new German state and whether organizations representing German Jews abroad and in the country should approach the new German authorities directly or should act only through international Jewish bodies. Leo Baeck took a clear stand on the major issues outlined here. He aroused the ire of Jewish organizations, including the Israeli fraternal organization, when he warmly and unreservedly welcomed Konrad Adenauer's statement in the Bundestag on September 27, 1951, that expressed sorrow over, and opposition to, the Nazi persecution of Jews and recognized the Jews' right to compensation. At the same time, Adenauer absolved the majority of the German people of responsibility for the deeds he attributed to Hitler and his entourage.1 Baeck thanked the chancellor warmly on behalf of his council on October 11, 1951.2 Dr. Siegfried Moses, the Israeli state comptroller, and a leading German-Jewish figure in Israel, protested strongly to Dr. W. Breslauer, an influential member of the council. In his letter of October 28, 1951, Moses claimed that Baeck's message to Adenauer "has greatly alienated myself, and as far as I can see, all our friends in this country."3 In Moses' view, Baeck had adopted a line of thought and action visa-vis the Federal Republic that was out of step with the majority opinion in Israel and had carried the council in Britain with him. Sharp clashes over heirless property also took place in Germany. Dr. Chaim Yahil, the deputy chief of the Israeli purchasing mission in Cologne, thus described the Jewish communities in Germany: There is a sharp controversy between the congregations and the inheriting organizations over what needs of the congregations are justifiable. In fact, the organizations approve very large budgets, just in order to avoid a rupture between themselves and the congregations and prevent their turning to the German authorities; but this barely satisfies the appetite of the congregations which have got used to inflated administration and an easy life.4

Dr. Hendrik G. van Dam, the executive secretary of the Zentralrat, told a Commentary reporter: But this property, after all, is German Jewish. The least we have the right to ask for is a fair share to meet our present needs, and to be decently included in consultations on where the rest should go. ... While we in the Central Council barely exist on a JRSO [Jewish Restitution Successor Organization] dole, they drive around in great limousines [emphasis in the original].5

Evidently, Baeck had taken a clear stand on this issue, too, as attested to by the document that follows. He believed that Jews from Germany had been denied a fair share in the heirless property and that the Jewish organizations such as the JRSO and the Claims Conference did not treat them properly.6 In his view, German Jews were entitled to a larger slice of the money recovered from Germany than they had been allotted. This document presents Baeck's point of view on a number of questions.7 It summarizes a conversation between Leo Baeck and Herbert Blankenhorn, Adenauer's chief political adviser.8 It is not clear who prepared the summary, although

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its contents indicate that it was someone well-versed in the issue. An educated guess would point to Dr. Abraham Frowein of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was closely involved in the development of German-Israeli-Jewish relations. Nahum Goldmann served at the time as president of the World Jewish Congress, the Claims Conference and the Jewish Agency. As Goldmann's (German-language) letter to Saul Kagan of the American Joint Distribution Committee (May 28, 1954) shows, the Jewish statesman had been given a confidential copy of the summary. Goldmann reacted angrily. He wrote to Kagan: Dr. Beck [sic] by the way, complained to Blankenhorn about us in a manner that can only be described as baseness, supported by arguments which from a human standpoint are incomprehensible. Adenauer did not receive him. This information to you about Beck [sic] is confidential. Ever since I learned about this conversation, I regard Baeck as a pseudo-saint, one who should be removed from Jewish public life if at all possible; more details in person. Unfortunately, the conversation cannot be exploited as it is confidential and I cannot compromise Beck [sic].9

These were very strong words. An explanation of Goldmann's approach to German Jewry can be found in a ("strictly confidential") circular letter of Manfred George, the editor of the New York-based Aufbau, a German-language weekly of German-Jewish immigrants in the United States. Wrote George: Dr. Goldmann, who feels very strongly about this matter, stated repeatedly that there could be no question of a compromise as far as the financial recognition of one special group (Landsmannschaft) is concerned. He pointed out that the leaders of the Jewish world community have fought for decades to eliminate any and all Landsmannschaften in favor of a united world Jewry, and that it has taken many hard battles to reach the present stage. Recognition of the German Jewish group in this matter would breach the unity. Furthermore, it would lead to similar demands from other Jewish groups (Czechoslovak, Hungarian, etc.) who have already raised certain problems. Dr. Goldmann does not deny that German Jewry has a certain moral right to financial consideration. He pointed out that the German Jews in Israel have received $250,000— the only group in Israel to receive any special grant.10

George cautioned readers against any step destined to bring the German government into the conflict. He advised the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe to regard the entire conflict as a strictly intra-Jewish affair, but the Londonbased Baeck acted differently. Goldmann explained to Adenauer the nature of the conflict within the Jewish camp. The German authorities were well-informed about the Jewish dissension anyway, and the Jewish establishment harbored the fear that Bonn might use this to the detriment of Jewish interests. It is for these reasons that Goldmann, too, expressed in his letter to Kagan the view that it would be necessary to reach an understanding (Einigung) with those people, as they could cause harm in the long run. 11 The Blankenhorn-Baeck document revived certain longstanding tensions of the past and added fresh ones. Evidently, such frictions were not easily laid to rest.


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TEXT OF THE DOCUMENT12 On 8th May 1954 the former chief rabbi of Berlin, Dr. Leo Baeck, who happened to be in Berlin for the award of an honor by the World Brotherhood Movement, was received by Ambassador Blankenhorn. 13 In the course of general statements concerning U.S. foreign policy, Dr. Baeck outlined the difficulties existing between the Jewish groups led by him and the Jewish organizations which can be said to be represented by Dr. Nahum Goldmann. The opposition between them stemmed from the different ideological frameworks of the people who had built these organizations. Dr. Baeck, who has been a British subject for many years now, still today, as he emphasized, designates himself a "German Jew" as well. He is the president of the Council for the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Jews from Germany. Dr. Baeck described how the difference in conception and in tactics between German and Eastern Jews was to be explained by the different historical development of these two Jewish groups. For over a hundred years, from before the emancipation until the years after 1933, the German Jews had conducted a Kampf ums Recht [struggle for equal justice]. On the other hand, the Ostjuden [Eastern Jews], by which term he, Dr. Baeck, wished to designate the Jews living in the territory of former Tsarist Russia, had never waged a fight of this kind and had never been in a position to do so. No moral reproach was therefore directed against them. The Ostjuden had to defend their bare survival with every means against state and other forms of persecution. After that long period of struggle it was understandable that the Ostjuden had become extraordinarily skillful, but often unscrupulous as well, in their choice of means to reach their objectives, and had remained so till the present day. A further difference between the two groups manifested itself in their attitude to Zionism. The Ostjuden—altogether understandably from their point of view—always longed to leave the countries they lived in; therefore, Zionist thinking had at all times had an obvious practical significance for every single one of them. As against this, until Hitler, Zionism in Germany, insofar as it took root at all among German Jews, had been of significance only as an idea, in which the religious aspect in particular also played a part. It was precisely the religious aspect, however, which had been completely thrust into the background by the Zionist pioneers who were now the leading statesmen in Israel. Dr. Baeck described the former prime minister of Israel, Ben-Gurion, as an outstanding personality who was, nevertheless, full of contradictions. He was "an unbeliever who believed in miracles." BenGurion was convinced that the good Lord God of Israel would not leave him in the lurch, but at the same time he did not believe that God existed. The Council in Britain under Dr. Leo Baeck left the JRSO a few weeks earlier. The reason for this break, which Dr. Baeck stressed was not fully expressed in the official exchange of letters, lay in the fact that the JRSO would not recognize that Jews living in Germany and Jews who had been driven out of Germany had a ' 'right'' to have commensurate shares in the ownerless property taken over by the JRSO. Dr. Baeck pointed to the example of the Jews driven out of Germany and living in France, who for the most part are particularly needy, since in line with French practice there is little prospect of naturalization for these Jews, thus making their economic integration more difficult. In spite of repeated representations, the JRSO had not proved ready to provide money or an urgently needed old-age home for [German] Jews in France.14 Dr. Baeck turned to talking of a possible appeal to the arbitration court of the Israel Convention through the Bundesregierung [German government] against the distribution of money by the Claims Conference contrary to the agreement. I pointed to the provisions laid down in this connection in Protocol no. 2 of 10th September 1952,15 closely safeguarded by its clauses, where success in an appeal to arbitration seems to be left problematic. Ambas-

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sador Blankenhorn suggested that the Bundesregierung might at least indicate to the Claims Conference that according to the Bundesregierung's view the distribution of moneys did not correspond to the intention of the Convention at certain points. Dr. Baeck expressly asked me to put off such a step for the time being, that is for some two or three months, since a settlement may conceivably still be reached. On this occasion, Dr. Baeck confirmed what the undersigned had learned the previous day from the secretary-general of the Zentmlrat der Juden in Deutschland [Central Council of Jews in Germany], Dr. van Dam, that the Claims Conference had come halfway to meet the Zentralrat in the distribution of the first installments under the Israel Convention, so that at present Jews living in Germany have been given satisfaction. Dr. Baeck, who concerns himself, together with his organization, with the Jews who were driven out of Germany, explained it laughingly on the principle always pursued by the Claims Conference, "divide et impera." Bonn, llth May 1954.

Notes I wish to express my appreciation to the Raab Center for Holocaust and Redemption Studies for supporting this research. 1. Konrad Adenauer, Deutschland und das Judentum. Die Erklarung der Bundesregierung uber die deutsch-jiidische Verhaltnisse (Bonn: 1951), 18. 2. The Israeli State Archives (ISA) (Jerusalem) file 533/4, Baeck to the Bundeskanzler, London, 11 October 1951. 3. ISA, file 533/4, Moses to Breslauer (private) Jerusalem, 28 October 1951. Der von Dr. Baeck unterzeichnete Brief unseres Council an den Kanzler der deutschen Bundesrepublik hat mich und, soviel ich sehe, alle unsere Freunde hier im Lande auf's ausserst befremdet. 4. ISA, file 2387/22, Yahil to the West European Section of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Cologne, October 1953. 5. Leo Baeck Institute (LBI), New York, George Landauer Collection, B26/1, no. 16, quotation from Hal Lehrman, "The New Germany and the Remaining Jews," Commentary (December 1953). 6. The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (the Claims Conference) was founded in New York City on 25-26 October 1951 to represent world Jewry in its claims against Germany. In 1952 it became a holding company in charge of distribution of the reparations money. The JRSO was active in recovering Jewish heirless property in the American Zone of occupied Germany. 7. It is located in the Nahum Goldmann Collection, file Z6/1622, which represents part of Goldmann's Nachlass (posthumous papers), deposited at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem (CZA). 8. Blankenhorn's past during the Nazi period was somewhat clouded. Nevertheless, he belonged to the small inner circle that arranged the German-Jewish rapprochement. 9. CZA, Nahum Goldmann Collection, file Z6/1811, Goldmann to Kagan, Berlin, 28 May 1954. 10. CZA, Nahum Goldmann Collection, file Z6/1622, George to "Dear Friend," New York, 23 April 1954. 11. See n. 8. Cf., for an example of the exchange between Erich Lueth and Kurt R. Grossman, in LBI, Kurt Grossmann Collection, B35/4, Box 21, file 5, Lueth to Grossmann, Hamburg, 4 June 1953; Grossmann to Leuth, Kew Gardens, N.Y., 23 June 1953.


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12. CZA, Nahum Goldmann Collection, file Z6/1622 [translated from the German original]. 13. Leo Baeck visited the Federal Republic to be awarded, together with President Theodor Heuss and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, the World Brotherhood Award (on 5 May) and a Ph.D. honoris causa by the Free University of Berlin (on 20 May). 14. The Claims Conference eventually forwarded sufficient means for the nursing home. 15. See the Agreement Between the State of Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany drawn up by representatives of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (New York: Israel Office of Information), Appendixes, Protocol no. 2. This Protocol specified the monetary obligations the Federal Republic took upon itself toward the Claims Conference. Article no. 4 provided for an arbitration commission in the case of disputes.

Independence and Universal Mission in Modern Jewish Nationalism: A Comparative Analysis of European and American Zionism (1897-1948) Alton Gal (BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV)

Modern Jewish nationalism developed in Western Europe chiefly in response to the continuity—despite emancipation—of antisemitism and Jewish cultural frustration; in Eastern Europe it developed in response to the failure of emancipation to occur at all. Zionism became the classic Jewish nationalist answer to oppression and humiliation. The main aspirations of the European Zionist movement were Jewish sovereignty in Palestine and the full-fledged revival of Jewish civilization. 1 The World Zionist Organization, founded in Basel in 1897, included American Zionists from the beginning. But American Zionism developed in a social environment that in many ways contrasted sharply with that of Europe. Antisemitism in America has always been rather marginal, and Jews enjoyed emancipation without having to engage in any real struggle for it. Alongside divisive ethnic realities and nativist ideologies there also developed pluralistic, ethnicity-affirming conceptions, and the pluralism that characterized religious life became increasingly typical of cultural and ethnic life as well. These divisive and pluralistic realities, nourished as they were by intensive Jewish solidarity with their European brethren and with the efforts of the Palestinian pioneers, were central factors in the rise of American Zionism.2 It is the premise of this essay that the difference in the political realities of Europe and America gave rise to differences in the conception of Zionism for Jews in each continent. The European goals—independence and cultural renaissance—had to be given meaningful justification in the American context as well. The justification, as we shall see, was to conceive of nationalist goals as contributing to American society and to humanity in general. In the United States, Zionism was largely conceived as a mission to serve society at large.3 Although the sense of a universal mission was present in European Zionism as well, its meaning and significance were different. "Mission" in the sense it is employed here—a national commitment designed to serve higher goals—was quite a rare phenomenon in the European case.4 242

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My aim is to examine and compare, through the perspective of the mission idea, the character of nationalism in European and American Zionism. This survey and discussion should help us comprehend the distinctive nationalist conceptions prevalent among European and American Zionists. Hitherto, scholarly attention to the assumed difference between Europe and American Zionism has been confined chiefly either to the case of the Brandeis-Weizmann conflict or to descriptions of the situation in America.5 The few analytical observations are mainly by-products of these discussions; they raise the question rather than resolve it.6 Zionism emerged as an organized and well-defined movement under the banner of ' 'political Zionism.'' This school sought Jewish sovereignty as its decisive goal and advocated concentrating on politics and diplomacy in order to attain it. Theodor Herzl—who together with Max Nordau founded the World Zionist Organization in 1897—was the leading exponent of this approach and of the Zionist movement during its formative years.7 The focus of Herzl's work was achieving a political home for his persecuted people. "A publicly recognized, legally secured home in Palestine" was the essence of classic Herzlian Zionism.8 Herzl was a staff writer for the Neue Freie Presse (a Central European liberal newspaper) and the author of the eloquent Utopian tract, Altneuland. But what prompted him to found Zionism was Jewish national distress. When asked whether the future Jewish state had a mission to impart to the world, Herzl responded evasively: he hoped for a humanistic state, but it was not for the sake of a universalistic mission that the state would be created.9 The Jewish state was in Herzl's conception an intrinsic goal, the goal rather than a means of achieving something else. The parallel figure to Herzl on the American stage was Louis Brandeis, whose leadership established Zionism as a significant factor in the United States and who effectively furnished the movement with a cohesive ideology. Like Herzl, Brandeis aspired to Jewish sovereignty without deeply considering Jewish culture and the Hebrew language.10 Brandeis, too, envisioned a progressive Jewish state. But here the similarity with Herzl ends. Brandeis, who lived in a democratic and pluralistic country, conceived of Zionism in the context of his American social philosophy. Zionism was relevant to him because he believed that it carried a message meaningful for American society at large. The Zionist movement in America would make America even more democratic and pluralistic, and the realization of the Jewish state would attest to the best of American ideals and improve mankind. When in August 1914 Brandeis became the chairman of the Provisional Executive Committee for Central Zionist Affairs and assumed the leadership of American Zionism, he declared that Zionism was chiefly the best way of preserving the most noble accomplishments of Jewish civilization. These Jewish accomplishments and American ideals were quite identical in Brandeis's philosophy.11 About ten years later, Brandeis reasserted his mission orientation when he declared (in the course of a conflict with European Zionists over the methods of implementing the Zionist program in Palestine): Our aim is the Kingdom of Heaven, paraphrasing Cromwell. We take Palestine by the

way. But we must take it with clean hands; we must take it in a way as to ennoble the Jewish people. Otherwise, it will not be worth having. 12

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Herzl's political Zionism had an extension that reflected European circumstances. Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky founded the Revisionist movement that, in the name of Herzl's legacy, concentrated on achieving a Jewish state as the alpha and omega of Zionism. In Jabotinsky's monistic philosophy, Jewish sovereignty was an end in itself. Liberal aspects of his thought notwithstanding, Revisionist Zionism altogether ruled out mission motifs.13 Jabotinsky's influence was great in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland, where antisemitism ran high. By the same token, Revisionism has never struck deep roots in American soil.14 Evidently, acculturated American Zionists did not respond to the kind of nationalism that confined itself to achieving sovereignty. Brandeis's attitude toward Jabotinsky—shared with other American Zionist leaders—was characterized by stiff ideological rejection and personal resentment.1S On the American scene, Brandeis's mission-oriented Zionism readily eclipsed Revisionism. In the United States the largest and stablest of all Zionist bodies was Hadassah, the Women's Organization of America. A genuine American phenomenon, Hadassah was dedicated to a program along "social feminist" lines,16 which claimed specific roles for women—such as motherhood, health care, nutrition and education—and aspired to a society that would enable them to assume the relevant responsibilities. In this vein, Zionist women tended to look for a general social rationale for their Zionism. In other words, Zionism was justified as a fulfillment of American and Jewish ideals from the perspective of social feminism. Hence, a mission orientation was typical of the prevalent view within Hadassah. Henrietta Szold, the organization's founder and spiritual leader until her death (in 1945), believed, "The world has not progressed beyond the need of Jewish instruction" and that on the basis of a Zionist state the Jew would play the role of "a witness and a missionary." Jews, she argued, were essentially cosmopolitan; when they would have a place where their whole work and life were Jewish, they would again live up to their mission—the creative benefaction of world civilization.17 Szold certainly conceived of Zionism as a bulwark against Jewish assimilation, but she was no less concerned with the question of the Jewish and the Zionist message to the world. Szold's successors in the Hadassah leadership followed her lead.18 It is no coincidence that the binational idea as a moderate Zionist approach to the Arab-Jewish conflict was prevalent among Hadassah members for many years.19 This compromising attitude toward Jewish sovereignty was ingrained in Hadassah's two major values, social feminism and mission Zionism. As social feminists, American Zionist women aspired to a political pattern that would directly correspond to their roles as givers of birth and happiness to children; they zealously looked for a harmonious national framework that would serve their idealistic leanings. Jewish sovereignty was considered a means toward higher goals that could, if necessary, be circumscribed. During the 1940s Hadassah gradually accepted the more militant Zionist policy of the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish commonwealth. But the mission motif still predominated. The future Jewish state was conceived as the bearer of a great humanistic message to the world; and this message—modern and prophetic at the same time—would justify the toil and blood invested in the national endeavor.20 Revisionism, a monistic, sovereignty-oriented movement flourished in Eastern Europe but never firmly established itself in America, whereas Hadassah, an American


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mission-oriented movement, has been the largest and most successful of all American Zionist organizations. The two cases serve to sustain the thesis of this essay. Cultural Zionism, the European school connected with the philosophy of Ahad Haam (Asher Ginzberg), emphasized the revival of Hebrew culture and the development of Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) as a center for the cultural inspiration of world Jewry. The renaissance of the Hebrew language, cultural creativity and the pursuit of the Jewish ethos were the goals that Jewish sovereignty had to serve. This school is doubly relevant to our discussion. First, all European Zionist leaders who helped to create the State of Israel adopted elements of Ahad Ha-am's legacy. Although Ahad Ha-am identified the Jewish ethos with certain moral values, chiefly social justice, what he principally sought was nationalist cultural selfrealization.21 He sought no external justification for his brand of Zionism; neither was he interested in the universal mission of the future Jewish state nor did he ever understand the pursuit of Jewish values as a service to mankind that sanctioned Zionism.22 Indeed, Ahad Ha-am's classic essay, "Slavery in Freedom," directly challenged the mission theory: The truth is that if Western Jews were not slaves to their emancipation, it would never have entered their heads to consecrate their people to spiritual missions or aims before it had fulfilled that physical, natural "mission" which belongs to every organism— before it had created for itself conditions suitable to its character, in which it could develop its latent powers and aptitudes, its own particular form of life, in a normal manner, and in obedience to the demands of its nature. Then, and only then, after all this had been achieved—then and only then, we may well believe, its development might lead it in course of time to some field of work in which it would be specially fitted to act as teacher, and thus contribute once again to the general good of humanity, in a way suited to the spirit of the modern world.23

Ahad Ha-am's disciplies—the generation that led the Zionist movement up to the establishment of Israel—echoed his hopes for the wholesome "organic" development of the Jewish people. Thus Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization and the first president of the State of Israel, saw Zionism as a "force for life and creativity residing in the Jewish masses," and as a remedy for "the malaise of frustrated capacities."24 An admirer of Ahad Ha-am, Weizmann was typical of his generation in incorporating cultural Zionism into his own philosophy.25 In this synthesis of political and cultural Zionism, there was no fertile ground for the mission rationale of Zionism. Weizmann, too, shaped his views in the classically European fashion. In the course of his conflict with the Americanized Zionists (a conflict that continued for two to three decades after the end of the First World War), he articulated his nationalist credo: 1. Zionism is built on one and only [one] fundamental concept and that is Jewish Nationalism, which means unity of purpose of all Jews, the purpose being [the] return of the Jews to Palestine and setting up there a Jewish life 100%. Everything else is subordinate to this purpose. 2. It follows from that, that all honest means and forces available to Jewry must be concentrated on the achievment of this result, and all forces in international Jewry must be brought to play.

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3. It is honest and moral as long as our purpose is honest and as long as we use it for the welfare of our people. We don't dream of conquests or of world domination, but of collecting our forces which are diffused and which have been exploited by others to our detriment. Every atom of strength we have must be pressed into the service of our cause. We have the right to do it openly and we can stand the severest berating of all honest men.26

In contrast to the Ahad Ha-am model, cultural Zionism in America lacked the drive for nationalist self-realization. American cultural Zionism was more spiritual, emphasizing universal values rather than such nationalist attributes as language and historical traditions. In comparison to the European phenomenon, American cultural Zionism was less self-assertive and more mission oriented. To be sure, Solomon Schechter, the pre-eminent cultural Zionist in America and president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America from 1902 to 1915, supported Zionism chiefly as a guarantee for Jewish survival in the Diaspora.27 But he himself came from Europe and reflected the less-acculturated elements in American Zionism. As a rule, the more acculturated American Zionists were, the more mission oriented their Zionism became. This was the case, for example, with Louis Finkelstein and Mordecai Kaplan. During the Second World War Finkelstein, a Conservative rabbi, educator and longtime president and chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, contributed thoughtful articles to New Palestine, the major American Zionist periodical. He conceived of Zionism as carrying the crucial message of teaching the world to accept diversity and to tolerate minorities. The fulfillment of Zionism was an essential service in achieving world peace, he claimed, and suggested that Jewish Palestine was a vital ' 'instrument of both the unification of man and the eradication of neo-paganism."28 Kaplan, an original Conservative thinker and perhaps the most articulate American religious Zionist, apparently rejected the idea of a Jewish mission; still, he emphatically spoke of the Jews as a "spiritual nation" attuned to an "ethical and spiritual vocation."29 In light of this conception, Kaplan called for a "greater Zionism" after the establishment of Israel. The young Jewish state, he felt, was responsive enough to the twin goals of "classical Zionism": offering a home for the persecuted and saving Jewish civilization. But there was still a third challenge, Zionism's contribution to the improvement of mankind. Zionism should live up to its universal message, he wrote, "because of its idealistic, cosmic, spiritual or religious character."30 Interestingly enough, religion, which one might expect to have united religious Zionists on a common basis all over the world, reflected the dichotomy of Europe and America in the clearest way. The nationalist aspiration of the European founders of religious Zionism did, of course, imply a universal, eschatological mission. But, generally speaking, their message emphasized the national element of messianism: the idea of the Restoration in Zion.31 An important figure here is Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines, the founder of the Orthodox Mizrachi movement. Reines helped to shape religious Zionism for generations to come as a belief in the eventual achievement of a nationalist-religious state. This desired state could only partially be regarded a means toward a goal, for it would have to submit to, and be justified by, religious criteria: religious law should ultimately be the law of the state.32


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The nationalist element in messianism became paramount in the generation that led Zionist Orthodoxy up to and through the establishment of Israel. Neither Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon (Fishman), who headed Mizrachi in Eretz Israel during that period, nor Rabbi Meir Bar-Han (Berlin), who led the world Mizrachi movement until 1949, took up the line of a universalist mission. A trio of inter-connected religious-nationalist elements—the Torah of Israel, the People of Israel and the Land of Israel—governed their philosophy. The Jewish state had to be identified with these elements.33 Zionist Orthodoxy in the United States was not meaningfully different from its European counterpart.34 In fact, it was part of a cohesive worldwide movement with an American branch rather than an indigenous American phenomenon. Apart from the Conservatives (e.g., Finkelstein and Kaplan), it was left to the American Reform Zionists to stress the universalist and mission-oriented component of traditional Jewish messianism.35 Reform Rabbi Judah L. Magnes, an active American Zionist until the First World War, declared, "Zionism ... is not an end in itself . . . Palestine is one of the means of making the Jewish people cleaner, better, truer." For Magnes, Eretz Israel was "worth loving" if it made the Jewish people "fitter for its service in the world of men."36 There were not many Reform Zionists before the First World War, but they adopted essentially similar conceptions.37 From the 1930s on, the Reform movement at large sanctioned Zionism through the medium of a remodeled mission ideology. Instead of the scattered Jewish people it was now Jewish Palestine that was destined to enlighten the nations.38 Although the growing influence of Zionism in the Reform movement was a lengthy and gradual process, it is instructive to note the continuously important role of Reform personalities in the American Zionist movement. Richard Gottheil, the first president of the Federation of American Zionists (FAZ) had a conspicuously Reform background. Magnes was actually the intellectual leader of American Zionists until the First World War. In the period between the two world wars another Reform rabbi, Stephen S. Wise became the most prominent leader of American Zionism. For Wise, the greatest test of the future Jewish state was its pursuit of prophetic ideals.39 The leader of the American Zionists during the crucial five years that preceded the establishment of Israel was a Cleveland Reform rabbi, Abba Hillel Silver, who was at the same time a most articulate spokesman of the Zionist mission theme. In 1947 he restated the principles that he had proclaimed for decades: Many of the spokesmen of our cause were driven to extol nationalism, per se, which is after all a quite recent and, demonstrably, a quite inadequate human concept. It is not mankind's ultimate vision. Certainly, it is not the substance of our own ancestral tradition whose motif is not nationalism but prophetism. . . . Nationalism is not enough. It is a minimum requirement, not a maximum program. Our national rebirth was made possible by a war in which nationalism was thoroughly exposed and discredited. Nationalism is a means, not an end.40

After the Jewish State became a fact, Silver continued to preach in the same vein and called upon it "to be a light unto the nations." He insisted, "The mission ideal is historically valid. It is of the very warp and woof of prophetic Judaism. It is valid today. It is the burden of our destiny."41

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The central role of Reform rabbis in American Zionism reflected the specific nature of the movement vis-a-vis classic European Jewish nationalism. American Zionism had a meta-nationalist bent. The mission motif in American Zionism helps us understand the peculiar affinity between it and the Reform movement.

Although American Zionists generally were moderate in their social outlook (liberals of different shades), they readily supported the Zionist-socialist-led endeavor in Palestine. This support was granted not simply because the European pioneers in Palestine came to control and to be identified with the nationalist enterprise but also because American Zionists, themselves mission oriented, were attuned to a movement that aspired to establish a new society. The historical paradox was that the builders of the new society in Palestine, the socialist-Zionists, virtually all of European background, tended to integrate their social aspirations into a nationalist redemptive program. What were, indeed, the ideological perspectives of the Palestinian pioneers and founders of the new state? In the historical background there were the East European mentors of socialist Zionism: Nachman Syrkin, Aaron David Gordon, and Ber Borochov.42 Syrkin believed in a Jewish ethical message to the world that would be reinforced with the attainment of Jewish sovereignty. But basically he saw the future Jewish state as the solution to the national Jewish problem that could be advanced only by a democratic mass movement and socialist policies. Jewish sovereignty was the goal; socialism was the appropriate strategy.43 Rather than conceiving of Zionism as a means toward an ultimate socialist goal, Syrkin synthesized them. Gordon, who exerted a great influence on Eretz Israel's pioneers, conceived of national redemption in a broad, at times even cosmic, context. The return to the land and to physical labor were associated in his mind with humanism and allembracing noble values. But like Syrkin, Gordon's theory was a synthesis, an organic and mystical one, of nationalism and social vision.44 In it, the Jewish mission to the world is a by-product of a vigorous nationalist self-realization.45 The pattern was somewhat different with the Marxist Zionist, Ber Borochov, who went through three distinctive phases during his short life. In his second phase he constructed a comprehensive theory according to which Jewish workers could successfully pursue socialism only on the strategic basis of a Jewish national state.46 Sovereignty was a means to serve the cause of socialist revolution. But this line of thought was largely abandoned in his final, much less dogmatic version of Marxist Zionism. Except for a few on the far left, his disciples in Eretz Israel did not commit themselves to a strict Marxist justification of Zionism as a strategy to attain socialism.47 The final elaboration and application of socialist-Zionist theory in the crucial decades preceding the establishment of Israel was primarily the work of Berl Katznelson, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Tabenkin. These labor Zionist leaders saw sovereignty first and foremost as an expression of Jewish self-reliance, and their socialist aspirations were inseparably woven into this nationalist endeavor. Each believed (like his mentors) in a somewhat messianic vein that an enlightened world message would emerge from the reconstituted Jewish commonwealth. But at the


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same time, for none of them was that message the raison d'etre of renewed national independence.48 Socialist Zionism was always a small movement in America. More genuinely a product of American circumstances than socialist Zionism was the ideology of social Zionism, which aspired to a combination of central planning and private initiative, public and capitalist sectors and the protection of producers as well as consumers. Social justice, economic freedom and a voluntary cooperative system were among its most conspicuous features. Many American Zionists became loosely committed to these tenets. It is instructive, however, that the leading exponent of social Zionism was also a supremely mission-oriented Zionist. Bernard Rosenblatt introduced his work Social Zionism to the American audience in the following words: In making Palestine a laboratory for momentous experiments in the quest for social justice, we are dedicating the future Jewish State to a world purpose ... in this final Jewish state we shall develop a model community based on Social Justice. Can there be a higher or nobler mission?49

After the establishment of Israel, Rosenblatt wrote a book praising the state's social achievements; he concluded with a section entitled "Israel as a State for Experimentation," in which he proudly depicted the Jewish state as a "laboratory for humanity at large."50 Generally speaking, European Zionism was attuned, first and foremost, to nationalist goals. Its spiritual, religious and social elements were either identified with, or subordinated to, attaining sovereignty and cultural revival. In American Zionism the relationship was often reversed: nationalist goals were justified by— sometimes even conditioned on—their contribution to more general values. American Zionism had a built-in universalist factor, whereas European Zionism basically aimed at nationalist redemption. In both Europe and in America there were some conspicuous exceptions to these generalizations. Some expressions of mission-oriented Zionism had developed in Western Europe, especially before the Nazis came to power. Whenever and wherever antisemitism was believed to be weak and emancipation was considered as partly successful, there were West and Central European Zionists such as Martin Buber, Edmond Fleg, Bernard Lazare and Leon Simon who tended to justify Zionism as a contribution to society at large.51 The clear exceptions on the American side were chiefly Orthodox religious Zionism and mainstream socialist Zionism. In both cases these were international movements with broad ideologies that took precedence over any local influences.52 They serve, though, to underpin our argument that the more American American Zionists were, the more they tended to rely on a general ethical raison d'etre of Zionism. Beyond regionalism in Europe and acculturation in America, time and historical circumstances were significant factors. For European Zionist thought, in particular, the events that shattered hopes for a wide international understanding of the national Jewish will to survive led to the decline of Jewish mission-oriented ideologies.

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Jewish progressives, sympathetic to universalist idealism, were disillusioned by the "enlightened" world's reaction to Jewish distress, beginning with the Kishinev pogrom of April 1903 and culminating in Nazism. The growing brutalization in the USSR and its subsequent expansionist policies eroded the belief in mission-oriented Zionism among left-socialist Zionists. In Eretz Israel, the Arab riots of 1920-21, 1929 and 1936-39 aimed against the Jewish community as a whole, curtailed most tendencies toward a mission ideology among the Zionist pioneers (most of them European-born). The veteran European founders of Zionism were less substantially affected, however, and often retained, if somewhat elusively, some sense of mission. The succeeding generations of European or European-born ideologists tended to elaborate theories in which the nationalist-redemptive message clearly predominated.53 This comparative analysis highlights the aforementioned paradox. European Zionism, from the social point of view, was more radical than the American version. Such radicalism notwithstanding, nationalist goals were definitive for European Zionism, whereas social and ethical goals often came second. American Zionism, on the other hand, was generally moderate or liberal in ideological terms but tended to uphold social and moral values as the ultimate goal of the movement. The paradox is, of course, more apparent than real. Fed by violent rejection and deep frustrations, European Zionism developed as a nationalist alternative to existing allegiances.54 In the endeavor to build a new national home, the reconstitution of sovereignty and national culture necessarily reigned supreme. Mainstream American Zionism, which never considered life in America as an exile, developed as a complement to its American allegiance.55 This affinity gave American Zionism a universalist dimension because it enjoyed the sanction of upholding the tenets of the general society. The affinity of American Zionism with American civilization was expressed also in the feet that adherence to a mission ideology was characteristic of two separate traditions of American nationalism. One conceived of it in terms of service and of "model America," whereas the other employed mission-like aspirations in a nationalist-expansionist vein.56 The mission concept in American Zionism related more to the first and served to modify and soften Jewish nationalism. Jews in America were free to assimilate into the surrounding society. They could also be identified within the Jewish group as non-Zionists. Those who, nevertheless, adopted Zionism sometimes conditioned it on the social-moral ideals of American society. Such was the case with Rabbi Morris Lazaron of Baltimore, a sensitive and caring American Zionist, who abandoned the nationalist goal as dysfunctional to his higher objectives.57 Conditional Zionism was, in fact, the most extreme expression of mission-oriented Zionism. In Europe, on the other hand, Zionists sometimes attached missions to nationalist goals so as to sustain the latter, as in the humanistic nationalism of the ' 'peoplemessiah" cast, to use J. L. Talmon's terminology.58 In a similar vein, European Zionists such as Nachman Syrkin and Aaron D. Gordon interwove their universalist message with a passionate nationalist vision. As European Zionism's drive stemmed from oppression and frustration, it defined its aims in concepts that contrasted with the Jews' present condition, namely,


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an idealized past, folk community and collective salvation. According to Hans Kohn, with the exception of Britain and France, most European nationalist movements developed in this pattern,59 although Elie Kedourie has argued that all nationalist movements were cast in this mold.60 In any event, European Zionism, unchecked by a moral universal mission, had an inherent potential to develop along mythical, folkist and nationalistic lines. American Zionism subordinated its nationalist goals to a higher set of values such as the dignity of man, freedom, justice and peace; their parallel in American nationalism is distinctive allegiance to certain social-political ideals.61 Unlike European Zionism, American Zionism had the intrinsic potential to be diluted (from the nationalist perspective) or transformed into an American Jewish civic movement. This tendency was quite evident in the case of the American Jewish Congress. It began during the First World War as a fervently pro-Zionist movement, but since the Second World War it has become preeminently concerned with the elimination of racial and religious bigotry in America.62 Finally, a few notes of caution are necessary. The difference between American and European Zionism should neither be overemphasized nor interpreted dogmatically. The nationalist redemptive quality of classic Zionism did not necessarily identify the pursuit of independence with an all-powerful state. In other words, it should not be confused with statism. Even Revisionism, for all its emphasis on the state's role, professed adherence to democracy and qualified liberalism.63 Indeed, European Zionism did incorporate elements of "Western nationalism" a la Kohn, for example, respect for individual rights and welfare. Though European Zionists pursued the renaissance of Hebrew civilization with a nationalist redeeming zeal, they placed the reemergence of the Jewish ethos at the core of this revival. This ethos included the same values that were elevated to centrality by their American counterparts.64 In reality, the differences between American and European Zionism tended to blur also because of the different roles ideology played on the two continents. Generally speaking, in Europe ideology was pursued much more rigorously. Consequently, the socially radical tenets of European Zionism, though often subordinated to nationalist goals, were active influences in shaping attitudes and policies. In the United States, on the other hand, the ideological "softness" permitted American Zionism to adopt policies and practices that contradicted its own premises.

Notes This essay is based on a lecture sponsored by the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, Brandeis University, November 1985. I am grateful to the Tauber Institute for assistance in preparing this article. 1. David Vital, The Origins of Zionism (Oxford: 1975), 23-266. 2. Ben Halpern, The American Jew: A Zionist Analysis (New York: 1956, 1983), 1133; and see nn. 5, 6. 3. For an exploration of the persistence of the mission rationale in American Zionism, see Allon Gal "The Mission Motif in American Zionism, 1898-1948," American Jewish

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History 75, no. 4 (1986), 363-385. The present article relies in part on the findings of that preliminary exploration. 4. Nathan Rotenstreich in his Hamahshavah hayehudit ba'et hahadashah, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: 1945; 1950) briefly elaborates on a Zionist school that relates to the mission idea. His two conspicuous examples, however, are Moses Hess and Martin Buber, both of Central Europe (vol. 1, 265-268); and see the following discussion, pp. 249-250. See Ben Halpern, The Idea of the Jewish State (Cambridge, Mass.: 1961), 21-27. 5. See Allon Gal "Brandeis's View on the Upbuilding of Palestine, 1914-1923," Studies in Zionism 6 (1982), 211-240. Naomi W. Cohen, American Jews and the Zionist Idea (New York: 1975), xi-xvi, 142-150; Ben Halpern, "The Americanization of Zionism, 1880-1930," American Jewish History 69, no. 1 (1979), 15-33. 6. Halpern, American Jew, 23-31; Melvin I. Urofsky, "Zionism: An American Experience," American Jewish Historical Quarterly 52, no. 3 (1974), 215-243; EvyatharFriesel, "Criteria and Conception in the Historiography of German and American Zionism," Studies in Zionism 2 (1980), 286, 294-299; see n. 5. 7. Vital, Origins, 233-370; Halpern, Jewish State, 20-31. 8. AlexBein, Theodor Herzl: A Biography (Philadelphia: 1956), 123-128, 159-165. 9. Amos Elon, Herzl (New York: 1975), 159-160, 347-351. 10. Allon Gal, Brandeis of Boston (Cambridge, Mass.: 1980), 205-206. 11. Ibid., 137-187, 206-207. 12. Quoted in Gal, "Brandeis's View," 238. 13. Joseph B. Schechtman, The Vladimir Jabotinsky Story, 2 vols. (New York: 1956; 1961), vol. 2, 550-552. 14. The sources for general information about American Zionism used in this essay are two works by Melvin I. Urofsky, American Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust (Garden City: 1975), which covers 1897-1941; and We Are One! American Jewry and Israel (Garden City: 1978), which covers 1942-75. See also Joseph B. Schechtman, "Vladimir Jabotinsky" and "Zionist Revisionists," in Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: 1971), vol. 9, 1178-1186, and vol. 14, 128-132. 15. Schechtman, Jabotinsky Story, vol. 1, 320-321; Brandeis to Stephen S. Wise 19 March 1935, in Melvin I. Urofsky and David W. Levy (eds.), Letters of Louis D. Brandeis, 5 vols. (Albany: 1971-75), vol. 5, 551. 16. For Hadassah's American context, see Sheila M. Rothman, A Woman's Place: A History of Changing Ideas and Practices, 1870 to the Present (New York: 1978), 95-174; Carol B. Kutscher, "The Early Years of Hadassah: 1912-1921" (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1976), 125-133. With the exception of Britain, European Zionist women were not generally organized into independent women's organizations. And it is highly doubtful whether within the general Zionist framework European women pursued a particular political course. Generally speaking, female European Zionists shared the other sex's views. For the continent's women, as for the leading male Zionists, Zionism was a movement that derived its sanction from nationalist needs and aspirations. Conclusions based on "Zionist Congress, 1st, Basel, 1897, Stenographic Report" (Jerusalem: 1946). 17. Henrietta Szold, "The Internal Jewish Question: National Dissolution or Continued Existence," The Maccabean 1, no. 2(1901), 61; Irving Fineman, Woman of Valor: The Life of Henrietta Szold (New York: 1961), 284. 18. See, for example, Irma Lindheim, Parallel Quest: A Search of a Person and People (New York: 1962), 50-51, 129-130, 351, 457; Szold, who had been the first national president of Hadassah (1912-21, 1923-26), was succeeded by Lindheim (1926-28). 19. Joan Dash, Summoned to Jerusalem: The Life of Henrietta Szold (New York: 1979), 295-299; Susan L. Hattis, The Bi-national Idea in Palestine During Mandatory Times (TelAviv: 1970), 169-172, 249-272. 20. See, for example, Rose Halprin's editorial, "We Herewith Pledge," Hadassah Newsletter 29, no. 9 (1949), 2. 21. Vital, Origins, 187ff.; idem, Zionism: The Formative Years (Oxford: 1982), 24ff.


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22. See, for example, the articles in Hans Kohn (ed.), Nationalism and the Jewish Ethic: Basic Writings of Ahad Ha'am (New York: 1962), 165-319. 23. Ahad Ha-am, "Slavery in Freedom" (1891), in Kohn, Nationalism and the Jewish Ethic, 63-64; idem "The Transvaluation of Values" (1898), in Kohn, Nationalism and the Jewish Ethic, 175-178. 24. Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error: The Autobiography ofChaim Weizmann (New York: 1949), 176. 25. Ben Halpern, "The Disciple, Chaim Weizmann," in Jacques Kornberg (ed.), At the Crossroads: Essays on Ahad Ha'am (Albany: 1983), 156-169; Jehuda Reinharz, Chaim Weizmann: The Making of a Zionist Leader (New York/Oxford: 1985), 65-91, and passim. 26. Weizmann to Felix Frankfurter, 27 August 1919, in Jehuda Reinharz, (ed.), The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann (New Brunswick/Jerusalem: 1977), vol. 9, 204205. Two more tenets follow: one suggests worldwide Jewish unity "directed towards Palestine as the one axis of Jewish life" and the other concludes "That [preceding tenets] will give us the Jewish National Movement capable of producing the National Home. All that is creative in Jewry will be absorbed by the National Home, the rest will become English or American or whatever it chooses to be," ibid., vol. 9, p. 205. It may well be that eventually this letter, for tactical reasons, was not sent (see ed. n. 1, ibid., vol. 9, 204). 27. See, for example, Schechter's "Zionism: A Statement," (1906) in Solomon Schechter, Seminary Addresses and Other Papers (New York: 1959), 103-104. 28. Louis Finkelstein, Reflections on Judaism, Zionism and Enduring Peace (pamphlet reprinted from New Palestine, 21 May 1943), 6. Finkelstein's "Zionism and World Culture" was a no less mission-oriented manifesto, New Palestine 34, no. 23 (15 Sept. 1944), 505506. 29. Jack J. Cohen, "Mordecai M. Kaplan's Concept of Peoplehood," in Ira Eisenstein and Eugene Kohn (eds.), Mordecai M. Kaplan: An Evaluation (New York: 1952), 40-44. 30. Mordecai M. Kaplan, A New Zionism (New York: 1959), 173-186; quotation, 178. 31. Israel Kolatt, "Ziyonut umeshihiyut," in Zvi Baras (ed.), Meshihiyut veeskhatologiah (Jerusalem: 1983), 419-431; Jacob Katz, "Israel and the Messiah," Commentary 71, no. 1 (1982) 34-41; Yosef Salmon, "Meshihiyut mesortit uleumiyut modemit," Kivunim 21 (1983) 97-102. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), the eminent religious thinker and first (Ashkenazi) chief rabbi of Palestine, often conceived of nationalism as a means of attaining the higher goals of an ethical religious reign and an end-ofdays world of peace and love. Still, Kook's thought was no less governed by the urge for the Restoration in Zion. Mystic kabbala philosopher as he was, his world-embracing imagination was blended with a fervent nationalist vision. For a "universalist interpretation" of Kook's thought see Zvi Yaron's massive Mishnato shel harav hook (Jerusalem: 1974); but see Kook's early and comprehensive "Teudat yisrael uleumiyuto" (1901) in Yehuda L. HaCohen Fishman (ed.), Azkarah lenishmat harav avraham yizhak hakohen hook, 5 vols. (Jerusalem: 1937-38), vol. 1, 60-97; also see essays on national and moral themes in BenZion Bokser (trans, and introd.), Abraham Isaac Kook (New York: 1978), 261-302. On the intensity of nationalism in the kabbala tradition, see Gershom Scholem, ' 'The Messianic Idea in Kabbalism," in Gershom Sholem (ed.), The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: 1971), 37-48. 32. Y. L. Ha-Cohen Fishman (ed.), Sefer hamizrahi (Jerusalem: 1946); Joseph Wanefsky's Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines: His Life and Thought (New York: 1970) is far from being exhaustive. 33. For Maimon, see his treatise, Haziyonut hadatit vehitpathutah: perakim bedivrei yemei yisrael veerez yisrael. For Bar-Han, see for example, his Mevolozhin liyerushalayim, 3 vols. (Tel-Aviv: 1933; 1971), vol. 3, 587-595 and his essay in Fishman, Azkarah, vol. 1, 197-204. 34. Leon (Aryeh Leib) Gellman, vice-president (1930-35) and then president (1935— 39) of the Mizrachi Organization of America strictly adhered to the European Orthodox pattern; see his Hayahadut bemaavakah: 'iyunim bemahshevet yisrael uvebe'ayot hamedinah (Jerusalem: 1956).

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35. For background see Arnold M. Eisen, The Chosen People in America: A Study in Jewish Religious Ideology (Bloomington: 1983), 53-72. 36. Judah L. Magnes, "Eretz Israel and the Galut" (May 1923), in Arthur A. Goren (ed.), Dissenter in Zion: From the Writings of Judah L. Magnes (Cambridge, Mass.: 1982), 208, 209. 37. See, for example, Caspar Levias, "The Justification of Zionism" (1899), in Joseph L. Blau (ed.), Reform Judaism: A Historical Perspective (New York: 1973), 379-392; Bernard Felsenthal, " 'Israel Mission,' " Maccabean 4, no. 3 (1903), 138. 38. For a preliminary exploration of this process, see David Polish, Renew Our Days: The Zionism Issue in Reform Judaism (Jerusalem: 1976), 191-203, 255-267; and Howard R. Greenstein, Turning Point: Zionism and Reform Judaism (Chico: 1981), 93-94, 130-131. 39. Stephen S. Wise, "The Great Consummation," Opinion 18, no. 3 (1948), 3-4; idem, Challenging Years: the Autobiography of Stephen Wise (New York: 1949), 323. 40. Abba H. Silver, After the U.N. Decision on Palestine (December 1947), pamphlet in the library of the Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, 3-4. 41. Idem, "Liberal Judaism and Israel" (November 1948), in Abba H. Silver (ed.), Vision and Victory: A Collection of Addresses, 1942-1948 (New York: 1949), 4. 42. For background and the ensuing discussion, see Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917 (Cambridge, Eng.: 1981), 288-328, 403-416, 329-363; see Allon Gal, Socialist-Zionism: Theory and Issues in Contemporary Jewish Nationalism (New Brunswick: 1973), 146-151, 172-182. 43. See, for example, Nachman Syrkin, "The Jewish Question and the Socialist Jewish State" (1898), in Marie Syrkin, Nachman Syrkin, Socialist Zionist: A Biographical Memoir and Selected Essays (New York: 1961), 276-285. 44. See the section "Nation and Society" in Shmuel Hugo Bergman and Azriel Shohat (eds.), Kitvei aharon david gordon, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: 1952-54), vol. 1, 215-269, and the articles in vol. 2, 41-296. For a selected translation into English published by the League for Labor Palestine, see A. D. Gordon: Selected Essays (New York: 1938). 45. Shlomo Zemah, "Mavo lekitvei A.D. Gordon," in Bergman and Shohat, Kitvei Gordon, 29-34; Eliezer Schweid, Hayahid: 'olamo shel A. D. Gordon (Tel-Aviv: 1970), 170-171. 46. Mattityahu Mintz, "Ber Borokhov," Zionism 1 (1981), 73-94; for Borokhov's conception in his "second phase," see his "Our Platform" (1906), in Mitchell Cohen (ed.), Class Struggle and the Jewish Nation: Selected Essays in Marxist Zionism by Ber Borochov (New Brunswick: 1984), 75-103. 47. Mintz, "Borokhov," 73-75, 93-95. 48. Anita Shapira, Berl, the Biography of a Socialist Zionist: Berl Katznelson 18871944 (London: 1984), 20, 26, 70-74, 185-186, 345; Shlomo Avineri, "Ben-Gurion: The Vision and the Power," in Shlomo Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State (New York: 1981), 198-216; Y. Tabenkin, "Hamatarah vehaderekh," (1944) in Devarim 6 vols. (Tel-Aviv: 1967-81), vol. 4, 74-87. 49. Bernard A. Rosenblatt, Social Zionism (Selected Essays) (New York: 1919), 10. 50. Idem, Two Generations of Zionism: Historical Recollections of an American Zionist (New York: 1967), 267-272. 51. For Martin Buber "Zion" and Zionism stood for a set of noble values; see his On Zion: The History of an Idea (Jerusalem: 1944/New York: 1952). For pre-Nazi Central Europe, see Paul R. Mendes-Flohr (ed., with commentary), A Land of Two Peoples: Buber on Jews and Arabs (New York: 1983), 3-33; and Mendes-Flohr, "The Appeal of the Incorrigible: Judah L. Magnes and His Jerusalem Colleagues," in Moses Rischin and Ze'ev Brinner (eds.), The Legacy of Judah Magnes University of California Press (forthcoming). For Edmond Fleg, see his Why I Am a Jew (New York: 1929), 88-98. For Lazare, see Edmund Silbcrner, "Bernard Lazar vehaziyonut" Shivat zion, 2-3 (1950-51), 328-363. For Leon Simon, see Samuel Tolkowsky, Yoman medini ziyoni, london, 1915-1919 (Jerusalem: 1981), 105-106. 52. Regarding American socialist-Zionism, see, for example, Hayim Greenberg, The


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Inner Eye: Selected Essays (New York: 1953) 1-86, 165-177; for religious Orthodox Zionism in America, see n. 4. 53. Israel Kolatt, "Hasozialism haerezyisraeli vehasozialism habenleumi" in the Historical Society of Israel's Harzaot bekhinsei ha'iyun behistoriah, hakenes hatet-zayin (Jerusalem: 1973), 337-361. 54. See Vital, Origins, Zionism. 55. Yonathan Shapiro, Leadership of the American Zionist Organization, 1897-1930 (Urbana: 1971), 248-261. 56. Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation (New York: 1963), 3-23, 261-266; Ernest L. Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's Millennial Role (Chicago: 1968), vii-xi, 203-214; Edward M. Burns, The American Idea of Mission: Concepts of National Purpose and Destiny (New Brunswick: 1957). For a succinct article, see Clinton Rossiter, "The American Mission," American Scholar 20, no. 1 (1950-51), 19-28. 57. Greenstein, Turning Point, 73-82. 58. J. L. Talmon, Political Messianism: The Romantic Phase (London: 1960), 256277. 59. Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background (New York: 1944), 455ff.; Hans Kohn, The Twentieth Century: The Challenge to the West and Its Response (New York: 1957), 1-182. 60. Elie Kedourie in his Nationalism (London: 1961, 92-140), attributes these inclinations to all European nationalist movements. In his introduction to Nationalism in Asia and Africa (New York: 1970), 22-149, Kedourie expands his critical study to those continents. 61. Kohn, Idea of Nationalism, 270-325; Philip Gleason, "American Identity and Americanization," in Stephen Thernstrom (ed.), Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: 1980), 31-34, 55-58. 62. C. Bezalel Sherman, "American Jewish Congress," in Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: 1971), vol. 2, 825-826. 63. Halpern, Jewish State, 27-51. 64. N. 23; and see, for example, Weizmann, Trial and Error, 176-177, and passim; David Ben-Gurion, "Mission and Dedication" (1950), in David Ben-Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (New York: 1954), 339-343.

Responses to Allon Gal 1. Arnold Eisen (STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

Perhaps we can shed further light on the contrast that Allon Gal seeks to illumine by turning briefly to a seminal address delivered in 1907 by Israel Friedlaender, professor of Judeo-Arabic civilization at the Jewish Theological Seminary and—what is more relevant—a prominent disciple of Ahad Ha-am. Friedlaender's title, "The Problem of Judaism in America," neatly sums up his twofold message. On the one hand, there was a problem. Judaism was in serious danger. Ahad Ha-am's analysis was on target. On the other hand, America held out the promise of a solution in ways that Europe did not and that, therefore, Ahad Ha-am could not have known. Like the Passover Haggadah, Friedlaender begins with harsh criticism and concludes with praise. This year we are "slaves under freedom," next year, perhaps, "a community blessed by the Lord." Zionism—a full decade after the movement's first congress—is barely mentioned. The structure of the address has since been repeated on countless occasions in American Jewish religious thought, literature and even sociology; therefore it bears somewhat more explanation. Five stages of argumentation are involved: 1. To gauge the full extent of Judaism's plight in the modern world we must recall that it is far more than a religion, rather, it is what Mordecai Kaplan would later call a civilization. The present state of Jewish culture was bleak; the picture in Italy, France, Germany and England held out little more optimism than that in Hungary, Galicia and Russia. 2. America had so far been no exception. Disintegration of Jewish life was directly proportional to the freedom enjoyed by the community. The "problem of the Jews" at least received some attention. That of Judaism was ignored. 3. But there was hope—and even precedent: the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry. Judaism was compatible with full participation in the surrounding culture as long as Jews insisted on defining themselves as a culture and did not allow themselves 4. Only in America could this occur: only there did Jews enjoy freedom, a context of pluralism, large numbers and increasing wealth. Even a Zionist would admit that it was fast becoming the center of the Diaspora, the "center of Judaism." Friedlaender stretches his imagination and conjures up "the type of the modern 256

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American Jew who is both modern and Jewish, who combines American energy and success with that manliness and self-assertion which is imbibed with American freedom." 5. And if Jews seized this unprecedented opportunity, if they became "men with straight backs and raised heads, big hearts and strong minds," they would fulfill the prophetic vision of a community marked among the nations, known to all as "blessed of the Lord." A Zionist, then, a thinker all too aware of the critique of the golah that lay at the root of the national movement, does not hesitate to invoke prophetic rhetoric of messianic homecoming in order to plot the future of the American Diaspora. The logic of the argument leaves him no choice, after all: to raise the issue of the Jewish problem in America, to raise it in America as an American before Americans and before Jews who have just wagered their futures on America proving an exception to the rules of exile they knew all too well—to do this is to presume the sort of hope that Friedlaender holds out. The rhetoric soars because it must. It is invoked to do a job of persuasion for which reality, as yet, was woefully inadequate. This accounts, I think, for much of the rhetoric of mission on both sides of the Atlantic. Jews had to feel that they were actively pursuing a goal of great importance. Given that European Zionists sought a place among (read "beside") the nations, and American Zionists sought a place within the "first new nation," it stood to reason that universalist motifs would be paramount. Jabotinsky's audience had no such gentile reference group and did have a context of ethnic politics. What people hope for is set against the negatives they know from experience. Going forth from Egypt is variously imagined, depending on the experience of Egypt one has undergone. More than this, I think, need not be said. American Zionism was a movement to help others, without prejudice to one's own interests or those of one's fellow citizens. Whether the Jewish state is a means or an end is a philosophical distinction of less relevance, I think, than the more concrete question of whether one intends to live there. American Zionists rarely did. Europeans either had that intention or made a pretense of having it. Once one has made either decision, for or against aliyah, innumerable and glorious rationales present themselves. Jews have never lacked for such formulations. Mission served its purpose in justifying Zionism, as in justifying its opposition. When its welcome wore thin, it was superseded by other ideologies. I wonder, then, if the idea led Reform thinkers such as Gottheil or Silver to embrace Zionism or was simply called into play to make sense of that commitment in relation to others already justified by the very same idea. People seek in themselves a unity of motivation their group life rarely affords. The "paradox" Gal raises is therefore, as he continues, no paradox at all. Nor should we say, having had our male consciousness raised in the past generation, that Hadassah women supported binationalism because such a "harmonious framework" afforded satisfaction "to their roles as givers of birth and happiness to children." I would rather argue that they sought to serve one cause dear to them without prejudicing others, just as the rest of us, male or female, do. Support for medical services in Israel was only the perfect exemplar of the larger pattern of

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American Zionism-cum-philanthropy. Not coincidentally, it has proven the most successful movement. And it continues the model for American Jews who wish to identify strongly with Israel without actually making it their sole identity, trusting instead in the double identity envisioned by Friedlaender and furthered by Mordecai Kaplan. That prophecy of Jewish life in America, although not entirely fulfilled (what prophecy is?) has proven particularly self-fulfilling.

2. Arthur Aryeh Goren (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

Allon Gal has made a signal contribution to the continuing debate over the "uniqueness" of American Zionism. In an earlier article, "The Mission Motif in American Zionism, 1898-1948," he defined the essence of this uniqueness in the American movement's belief that Zionism was a universal crusade to bring the prophetic ideals of justice and peace to the world.1 In the present essay Gal reinforces his thesis by arguing that European Zionism, unlike its American counterpart, falls within the category of a normal nationalist movement: an oppressed people seeking political independence, and—because of the peculiar circumstances of the Jews—struggling at the same time for territorial concentration. Hence, Gal informs us, for the American Louis Brandeis, Zionism's goal was the establishment of a "Jewish society that would realize sublime moral values and thus contribute to the betterment of the human family."2 Nearly three decades later, in the spring of 1943, Louis Finkelstein, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, wrote in a similar vein, "The role of Palestine as the instrument of both the unification of man and the eradication of neo-paganism makes the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the Holy Land a moral imperative."3 Thus a renowned secularist Zionist as well as the leading spokesman of Conservative Judaism, who was also a Zionist, subscribed to mission Zionism. Gal contends that this view of Zionism conformed with the American creed: a nationalism that was, in essence, ideological, based on equality, liberty and democracy and not on common origin. (European Zionists were unable to make a similar identification between Zionism and the national creeds of their countries of domicile.) This accord in national purpose permitted Jews who were at home in America to transform a foreign cause (Jewish National Home or Jewish State) into a universal one (Zion as "a light unto the nations"). In brief, Zionism was good Americanism. Indeed, in the post-1948 years American Jewish and American Zionist leaders stressed American Jewry's commitment to supporting Israel because it was in the forefront of the struggle for democracy, and this was the basis for winning U.S. government support. Gal has fashioned for us the patterns of a public ideology, which he has abstracted from the articles, sermons and polemics of Zionist leaders. His exploration of the imagery of Zionism's political rhetoric and his attention to the specific cultural milieux in which particular moods were generated enhances our understanding of the Zionist movement as it developed in disparate environments. Conceptually, Gal has opened a fruitful line of inquiry. However, presenting American 259

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Zionism's public ideology as universal mission has its problems, and I should like to enumerate some of them. The correlation between public rhetoric and political reality is sometimes out of joint. Jabotinsky and Revisionism is one such instance. As the prototype of European nationalist Zionism, Jabotinsky, Gal tells us, had no influence in the United States and his movement maintained a precarious existence. Mission-oriented Brandeis rejected the man and his ideology. However, one must point out, the socialist Zionists failed to do much better, although they stressed the just new society being built in Eretz Israel and trumpeted its universal message to the American trade union movement and to American liberals. The members of Poale Zion in America identified themselves with the progressive forces in Eretz Israel that were creating the new man and the new Jew, the halutz; they raised funds to support a workers' cooperative commonwealth, the Histadrut; and they bathed in the reflected glory of the most remarkable social experiment of the twentieth century, the kibbutz (the hope of mankind, some called it). Yet the most mission-oriented of all the brands of American Zionism agonized over its failure to win the support of progressive American Jews. It may have been stronger than the Revisionists, but only because its sister party in Eretz Israel, dominating the Yishuv's political establishment and controlling the Histadrut, diverted funds and manpower to its American branch. Nor did Brandeis's admiration for the left-wing Zionist youth movement, Hashomer Hatzair, and its kibbutzim, help them much in America. A common thread, which Gal recognizes, does seem to explain the weakness of the Revisionists, the Poale Zion, and, one should add, the Mizrachi: they were immigrant importations, in a sense, ideological landsmans'haftn, and so they appealed only to small coteries of fellow ideologues. The gap between mission rhetoric and Zionist work (or politics) becomes more important when one notes the attitudes of some of the leaders of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and Hadassah. Both organizations constituted mainline American Zionism. They were popular mass movements that appealed to acculturated American Jews. Gal points out, for example, that Silver, who dominated the Zionist movement during most of the war years and until the establishment of the State of Israel, was at the same time one of the most articulate spokesmen of the Zionist mission theme. And Silver knew of what he spoke. A Hebrew scholar who had written on Jewish messianism and a Reform rabbi educated in the tradition of Israel's mission to lead the way to the kingdom of truth, justice and peace among men, Silver's prophetic universalism embraced all good causes. As a young Cleveland rabbi, he boldly supported organized labor and during the Depression years was one of the leading spokesmen for a radical social welfarism. Yet, in the climactic final straggle leading to the founding of Israel, mission-minded Silver consistently opposed public condemnation of the schismatic Irgun Zevai Le'umi, the Revisionist-linked underground group.4 He and the entire Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) leadership engaged in tough, intra-Zionist power politics, finding confederates among the anti-labor elements of the political spectrum in Eretz Israel. Playing politics should not surprise us. That it was right-wing politics, however-, is noteworthy, for it raises questions about mission rhetoric when one bears in mind Gal's dichotomy between the European and American brands of

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Zionism, "nationalist goals were the conclusive ones for European Zionists. . . . American Zionists . . . tended to hold up social and moral values as the ultimate goal of the movement."5 Two American Zionist leaders did, indeed, attempt to fulfill the moral imperatives of mission Zionism, Judah L. Magnes and Henrietta Szold. Magnes was a political failure. Szold was beatified by Hadassah and wielded great influence as a symbol of the higher purposes of "Zionist social feminism." Gal rightly takes note of Hadassah's sensitivity to the Arab question and the sympathetic—albeit noncommittal—hearing it gave to such political notions as a binationalist solution. Yet, as Gal points out, in the 1940s Hadassah shifted to the more militant Zionist policy of statehood. Szold was dead and Magnes was just not given a hearing. Nevertheless, Hadassah retained a more moderate position than the ZOA. If the reservations I have raised have merit, then they point to the need for a more precise analysis of the structure of mission Zionism as popular ideology. For example, much of the rhetoric describes a messianic time when the universal humanistic teachings of Zionism (one might call it prophetic Zionism) will be fulfilled. Here, as Gal notes in his earlier article, is another version of the Puritan "a city upon a hill," and he quotes the Jewish Puritan Brandeis as saying: Our aim is the Kingdom of Heaven, paraphrasing Cromwell. We take Palestine by the way. But we must take it with clean hands; we must take it in a way as to ennoble the Jewish people. Otherwise, it will not be worth having."6

These religious metaphors require closer study. Was Zionism (in the American Zionist mind) like the ambiguous Puritan "errand into the wilderness"—a venture on another's behalf (for the American Puritans an errand for the Protestant Reformation, for mission Zionists building Zion for humanity's sake) that then declined to a mere venture on one's own behalf, to rebuild Zion to save Jews? It may be that Nazism, the White Paper, the Holocaust and the struggle for the state invalidated the universal errand. What remained for the American mission Zionists was a far more modest vision. There is need, too, to discriminate between the developed, comprehensive images and metaphors that, taken together, form a popular ideology, and the brief, banal slogans that may or may not have meant anything, for example, "We believe that the Jewish State will have a significant and worthy contribution to make to the progress of civilization, West and East."7 In the meantime, the missionists seemed to be saying that having paid our respects to the grand and ultimate ideal, we must concentrate on the hard reality of Zionist politics with its unsavory compromises. It is legitimate to ask, did American mission Zionism affect some of these decisions in a way different from European nationalist Zionism? It would also be important to know if there were times when mission-Zionist rhetoric was more vocal and served as the rallying cry of the movement and other times when it was dormant. Gal alludes to such changes in discussing Silver. Although he led the activist camp in the crucial years leading up to the establishment of the state his mission Zionism was overshadowed by militant nationalism. In times of mortal danger this is to be expected. It may have well been the case in Europe. Finally, and most important, Gal correctly emphasizes the influence of American

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Reform Judaism on mission Zionism. This was absent in Europe. Obviously American Reform provided the formula of Israel as the herald of the prophetic message to all of humanity. Reform rabbis, who were among American Zionism's most influential leaders, restored the ancient religious nationalist vision to classical Reform: Zion—physical, political Zion—redeemed in justice would bring salvation to the Jews and to humanity. But there is another aspect of Reform influence that deserves explication. It was an American religious movement (with its powerful Protestant influence). Hence, it was concerned primarily with spiritual uplift, supporting charities and social reform. This hortatory character of Reform Judaism was absorbed, to a considerable degree, by the Zionist movement. Thus the same Judaic ethic that led to mission Zionism led to progressive politics (practising in America what you preach). Brandeis's primary energies went into American social causes. During the period of the Second World War, Finkelstein invested much of his time organizing ecumenical conferences on the relation of humanistic thought and democracy. Stephen S. Wise, perhaps the most passionate of the mission Zionists, fought hard for equality for blacks, opposed war, spoke out for internationalism, attacked government corruption and supported, politically, American social democracy. These were all noble causes that could not be ignored by American mission Zionists who conceived of the ultimate and over-riding purpose of Zionism to be the achievement of the just society. These causes were part of their Gegenwartsarbeit agenda. In other words: there were no full-time mission Zionists in America; Zion was but one of their interests. Gal has presented a grand theme in brief compass. Inevitably, his important statement defining the mission motif in Zionism invites questions and raises reservations. However, the angle of vision—probing different mental sets and analyzing popular ideology—is highly suggestive, and we eagerly await learning more from him.

Notes 1. American Jewish History 75, no. 4 (June 1986), 363-385. 2. Ibid., 370. 3. Ibid., 377. 4. Noach Orian, "The Leadership of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver on the American Jewish Scene, 1938-1949," (Ph.D. diss., Tel-Aviv University, 1982), 365-66, 372-73, 391-95, 417-21, 497-498. 5. See n. 1. 6. Gal, in American Jewish History, 370. 7. Ibid., 373.

3. Yosef Gorny (TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY)

Allon Gal deserves our thanks for raising once again, in such a precise, thoughtprovoking and well-argued fashion, fundamental questions about Zionism as a nationalist ideology and as a sociopolitical movement. The most interesting aspect of his essay is that he has broadened the established and accepted distinction between West and East European Zionism by extending the comparison to include the United States. At the same time, he has demonstrated a link between the EastWest differences and those stemming from the contrasting humanistic-universalist and particularist-nationalist approaches. American Zionism, influenced by the values of American society, adopted the former view, whereas the latter was expressed most pointedly by East European Zionists. Gal, then, is persuaded that American Zionism was motivated by the idea of universal mission, whereas East European Zionism was driven by national, particularist interests. He argues, moreover, that "In the United States, Zionism was largely conceived as a mission to serve society at large." European Zionism, on the other hand, "unchecked by a moral universal mission, had an inherent potential to develop along mythical, folkist and nationalistic lines." Although this analysis is fruitful, one may question whether it is always applicable or entirely accurate. Gal, of course, is responsible enough as a historian to note the exceptions to his definitions. This tends to reinforce the impression that historical reality is so varied that it is difficult to force it to adhere to socio-ideological or cultural models without creating an intellectual procrastean bed. Yet, because Gal has admirably avoided this trap by indicating where the "deviations" from his models occur, several further fundamental questions arise with regard to his basic thesis. My intent here is to highlight these issues rather than to embark on systematic counterarguments. The first question that I would raise is: To what extent is there a clear distinction between universalist and particularist ideas in the great ideological movements of the nineteenth century in general and in Zionism specifically? In other words, is it not correct to suggest that the major nationalist, liberal and socialist movements tended to combine both elements? Even if there was an a priori distinction between them, historical praxis very quickly led to a synthesis between the universal and the particular. Liberalism and socialism could not ignore the reality of national distinctions or the aspirations of nations to self-determination, whereas nationalism was often mixed with liberal and socialist ideas. This is, of course, true for Europe, and Gal is, indeed, right when he agrees with those who have stressed the differences between American society and European society. And yet, it is impossible to avoid

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asking whether the United States itself, for all its universalist-rationalist foundations that are embodied in its Constitution, did not also develop a national consciousness based on its particular national values? In what way, for example, was the American moral mission—in the form of "the American way"—more universal than that of Mazzini? And was the liberal democrat Woodrow Wilson more universalist than the French social democrat Jean Jaures? Moreover, it was Wilson himself who initiated and supported the plan to grant national rights to minorities, in the context of the universalist-rationalist and just world order that was to be constructed at the end of the First World War. I do not wish to suggest that there is no distinction between universalism and particularism, but merely to indicate that these concepts must be examined in their historical contexts. This brings me to a question regarding the concept of mission that is crucial to Gal's analysis. Is this really a continuation of the Jewish mission idea propounded by Reform Judaism or is it a similar idea in a new form, one in which the religiousethical mission to the world has been exchanged for a Zionist-ethical mission to the American public? Gal, as we see in the notes to his essay, has devoted a separate article to the question of mission. It would, however, be useful if he were to clarify the concept as it relates to the issue he discusses here as well, considering that it represents the cornerstone of his thesis. This being the case, one must ask further: To whom was the mission of Zionism directed, as Louis Brandeis and Solomon Schechter—each in his own way an exemplar of the Zionism-as-mission idea—saw it? Was it meant to serve the Jews, who were part of American society, or American society, in which the Jews were one component? It would seem that the first alternative is the correct answer, for was there really no other way to strengthen America than through Zionism?! If I am correct that their point of departure was the Jews, not society in general, then the principle involved was particularist to begin with, not universalist. For all that American Zionism, as Gal puts it, was "designed to serve higher goals," it was actually saying that there was no contradiction between particularist Zionism and American universalism. Indeed, American universalism might gain from Jewish involvement in Zionism. This does not contradict what Gal has to say about the philosophies of the American Zionist intellectual leaders: Brandeis, Schechter, Horace Kallen, Henrietta Szold and Mordecai Kaplan. Rather, my question is directed at making clear the problematic character of the distinctions on which he bases his definition of their Zionist philosophy as compared with that of European Zionist leaders. From this angle, not only is there no difference between their universalism and that of Moses Hess and Martin Buber—as Gal himself points out—following Nathan Rotenstreich; but it is also hard to distinguish between the particularist function of Zionism for Jewish survival in Ahad Ha-am's theory and its role in the ideas of Schechter and Kaplan. This problem becomes much more significant for Gal's thesis when he discusses Zionism in its original, East European context or in its activist-operative phase in Palestine. It seems to me that it is impossible to understand the socialist Zionism of Nachman Syrkin and of Ber Borochov except in terms of the organic synthesis, as they saw it, between national particularism and socialist universalism. Furthermore,

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for them this synthesis represented a sine qua non (for different reasons) for the realization of the Zionist ideal. Aaron David Gordon's mystical nationalism had so pronounced a humanist-universalist character that he envisioned the future Jewish society in Palestine in terms of a "Man-Nation." Zionism in any other sense, he argued, lacked all meaning. To these examples we might add the intellectual leaders of the kibbutz movements, Yitzhak Tabenkin and Meir Yaari, who viewed their movements as pioneer efforts in constructing a new social order. Allon Gal mentions all of these, but sees their universalist leanings as a deviation from the particularist mainstream. I would contend, instead, that the synthesis that lay at the basis of their thought formed a seamless web. This synthesis possessed tremendous social and activist strength and indeed produced significant political achievements. One cannot understand the crucial role that the pioneer youth movements played in the realization of Zionism without appreciating the importance of that organic synthesis. It was very subjective, and perhaps even "false" in view of objective reality; but that did not vitiate its compelling moral strength that turned it into an historical force. Here we arrive at the political dimension of the problem that Gal raises. I would challenge his contention that the definitive proof of the nationalist-particularist thrust of the ideas of Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, Ze'ev Jabotinsky and David Ben-Gurion lies in their quest for a political solution to the Jewish problem. Political Zionism, first of all, was seen as the proper direction to take in returning the Jews to the family of nations, in the universalist sense, and not as a withdrawal into a narrow particularism. Herzl's Zionism was anchored in his liberal, universalist point of view, as he expressed it in Altneuland. Jabotinsky's political nationalism grew out of his positive view of nationalism generally, which he understood (along with Italian nationalist thinkers) as a universal value. His convictions led him so far as to accord a measure of respect to Arab nationalism as a whole and Palestinian nationalism in particular, despite his belief that a military clash between it and Zionism was inevitable. Weizmann, too, was convinced that Zionism represented an act of universal justice, and this constituted the strength of his position in his dealings with the British. And did not Ben-Gurion believe in Israel's role as "a light unto the gentiles?" It is true, as Gal stresses, that these Zionist leaders differed with the American Zionists over the importance or the necessity of a Jewish state for the Jews' physical and spiritual survival. But this does not justify drawing a sharp distinction between political independence and universal mission, as Gal would have it. I would like, in conclusion, to plead for something that remains a desideratum for all historians of Zionism. As I stated at the beginning of my remarks, Allon Gal's interesting essay prods us to rethink the fundamental issues of Zionism. But he also demonstrates the need for methodological tools commensurate with the task of confronting such a complex phenomenon, of clarifying its character, intensively examining its principles and describing its links (its similarities and its differences) with comparable sociocultural phenomena among other nations. I can only hope that my brief remarks and Allon Gal's response will serve to open an examination of how finely calibrated our understanding of ideological concepts must be in light of their multiple historical manifestations.

4. Ezra Mendelsohn (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

The use of models or ideal types in historical research can be very rewarding. True, they can lead to over-simplification and critics will always be able to point to exceptional cases that do not fit, but they often succeed in casting new light on the problem under discussion. An emphasis on regional differences in the study of modern Jewish politics is also to be commended. I therefore welcome Allon Gal's methodological approach to the history of Zionism, an approach that distinguishes between two geographically based models of this variety of Jewish nationalism: one American, the other European. But how convincing is this particular dichotomy? On the whole, I would say that Gal is more persuasive when discussing the peculiarities of American Zionism than he is on the subject of European Zionism. He is doubtless right to highlight the importance of the notion of mission in American Zionism, a notion that (as he points out) derives partly from the presence of Reform Jews among its leaders. I cannot accept the thesis that whereas Zionism in America was mission-oriented Zionism, in Europe it was concerned with more mundane national ambitions (e.g., Jewish statehood) and was largely "unchecked by a moral universal mission." Gal quotes Magnes, Reform rabbi and archetypical American Zionist, as saying that "Palestine is one of the means for making the Jewish people cleaner, stronger, better, truer.'' This belief had no more enthusiastic exponents than the pioneers and members of Zionist youth movements in Eastern Europe, who understood the Jewish national revival to mean, among other things, the creation of a "new Jewish man." Such inspirations, by the way, can be found among the members of Betar as well as in the movements of the left. Indeed, in 1936 Jabotinsky insisted that one of the goals of Betar was ' 'to create a new Jewish race [sic]. A race in the psychological sense. We want to remove the mark of the ghetto."1 Now I do not want to suggest that Jabotinsky and Magnes had much in common, neither do I think that Betar placed great emphasis on mission Zionism. But the fact is that many European Zionist movements did not believe that Zionism only had to do with obtaining a Jewish state. They were also very much concerned with promoting a revolution in the Jewish world and in creating both a new man and a new society. What, after all, was the great European debate over the Fourth Aliyah all about? Why did so many Zionists in Poland and elsewhere in Europe (and not only socialist Zionists) react so negatively to the spectacle of lower-middle-class Polish Jews going off to Palestine if they did not believe that the aim of Zionism was not merely to establish a Jewish state but also to further the creation of a new Jewish people and a new Jewish

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society? They, too, like their colleagues in America, did not want a new Berdichev (the symbol of everything negative in Jewish Diaspora life) in Palestine. Now Gal might argue that the East European pioneers and members of youth movements, along with the General Zionist opponents of the "Grabski Aliyah," were not really universalist in outlook because their concern was with the Jewish people, not with teaching mankind a moral lesson or serving as an example for mankind. But, for many European Zionists universalist aspirations went hand in hand with particularistic ones. Moreover, the universalist dimension in European Zionism played an important role in recruiting young men and women to the Zionist camp. Consider David Horowitz, one of the founding fathers of Ha-Shomer in Galicia, who writes in his memoirs that the articles in the German Jewish journal Jerubaal made a great impression on him and his friends precisely because they imparted to Jewish nationalism a belief in its moral "mission" (ye'ud [my italics]) ' 'thanks to which the movement of Zionist renewal will eventually bestow its values on the entire world."2 Horowitz also mentions the messianic aspects of his Zionism, and this element, too, present in varying degrees on the left and in the religious Zionist camp, possessed universalist as well as particularist meaning. Thus, if (as Gal informs us) the American Zionist Bernard Rosenblatt wanted Palestine to be "a model community based on Social Justice," so did hundreds and thousands of East European Zionists; and if Abba Hillel Silver said, "Nationalism is not enough," members of Poale Zion and Zeire Zion would have answered, "Amen." Gal argues that Tabenkin, Katznelson and Ben-Gurion tended to tone down their socialism and emphasize nationalism; this is true enough, but notice that these Europeans had left Europe for Palestine. Indeed, their growing emphasis on particularist nationalism became a bone of contention in their relations with their own constituents in the East European Zionist socialist hinterland. Let us recall that in 1920 most members of the Polish Poale Zion wanted to join the Third International, the Comintern, whereas their comrades in Palestine were opposed. And what could be more universal than the Third International? Let me conclude by suggesting my own models of Zionist movements, which are quite different from those proposed by Gal. First, I do not believe in contrasting American Zionism with European Zionism. More meaningful is the dichotomy between East and West—with East meaning Eastern Europe, above all PolandRussia-Romania and West meaning Central and Western Europe in addition to the new world. In the West, Zionism tended to be Palestino-centric but not interested in aliyah, by which I mean that its overriding concern was to assist in the establishment of a Jewish center in Palestine to be populated by Jews coming from other places, mainly from Eastern Europe. At home it usually held up the banner of Jewish integration and took little or no official interest in the local non-Jewish political scene. It is difficult to generalize about East European Zionism, which was so fragmented and divided. On the whole it may be said that in this part of the world Zionism was Palestino-centric but, in contrast to the West, strongly aliyah oriented. It was also deeply committed to national work in the Diaspora (Gegenwartsarbeit; in Hebrew, 'avodat hahoveh). Rarely, if ever, did it occur to Western Zionists to

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establish local political parties, run candidates for parliament or fight for national Jewish autonomy, but this kind of activity typified the mass Zionist movements of Eastern Europe. Indeed, the critics of this type of activity (and they were numerous) complained that Gegenwartsarbeit, or "Sejmzionismus," as it was sometimes derisively called, was literally ruining the Zionist movement by diverting it from its pristine Palestinian tasks. In interwar Eastern Europe—in Poland, Romania, the Baltic region and even in Czechoslovakia—Zionists established political parties, took up seats in municipal councils and parliaments, forged alliances with nonJewish parties and played a role in general politics. Their role in electoral politics meant, among other things, that such leaders as Yitshak Gruenbaum, Leon Reich and Yehoshuah Thon could claim with perfect justification that they and the movements they led enjoyed mass support. East European Zionists also established a wide variety of social and cultural institutions, most notably Yiddish and Hebrew school systems of which the Tarbut network is the best known. Such manifold political and cultural activities, such deep involvement in the political and cultural life of the local Jewish communities—carried out in the context of the bitter struggle against important anti-Zionist movements such as the Bund and Aguda—lent to the Zionist movements of Eastern Europe an entirely different and incomparably richer character than that of their Western counterparts. In the East, but not in the West, we have movements (sometimes with a mass following) struggling for Jewish national goals both "here" in the Diaspora and "there" in Palestine and employing a wide range of strategies in order to achieve these goals. This is not the place to analyze why these two different models of Zionist activity emerged, but one obvious reason is the difference between East European and Western society and politics. Here I can end on a note of agreement with Allon Gal. If we want to know why Yitshak Gruenbaum of Warsaw led an entirely different Zionist movement than did Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, then one thing we must obviously do is to analyze the differences between Polish and American political culture. In Zionist history, as in modern Jewish history in general, it is often (though not always) the case that "as the Christians go, so go the Jews."

Notes 1. Menora (Vilna), 5 Tevet 1936-37, 2. 2. Haetmol sheli (Tel Aviv: 1970), 53. See also the remarks of Pinhas Lubianiker (Lavon) in 1930, in the context of a discussion on the influence of A. D. Gordon on the youth movement, Gordonia, "Gordon's conception places us in the ranks of a universal movement." Quoted in Elkana Margalit, Tnu'at hano'ar gordonia—ra'ayon veorah hayim (TelAviv: 1986), 31.

Rejoinder Allon Gal

The recent interest in differences within Zionism based on the character of the societies surrounding Jewish communities is a sign of the growing maturity of scholarship about the Zionist movement. The task, however, is very complicated. We are discussing a world movement of a people whose continual migrations were a main feature of its history. Traumatic events as well as remarkable achievements in particular parts of the world have exerted a crucial impact on the history of the whole Jewish people, and thus, on world Zionism. The best way to pursue such themes, therefore, is to involve specialists on particular countries or geocultural regions in an exchange of views and insights. That is why I welcome the opportunity of using my essay as the starting point of this kind of critical dialogue. Obviously, defining a region or a civilization is complicated and may be difficult to justify. And any proposal of a Zionist model should as a rule be subjected to meticulous historical scrutiny. With this in mind, I very much appreciate Ezra Mendelsohn's presentation, which stresses the importance of regionalization. Indeed, I find it applicable to the model I have proposed: as I emphasized in my essay, Western Europe can hardly be coupled with Eastern Europe given the important differences between them. We can therefore speak on some occasions in terms of a "Western Zionism" or, where closer distinctions are required, we can individually analyze the cases of Great Britain, continental Western Europe, the United States or Canada. Other models of Zionism may fit other areas such as Latin America and the Muslim lands. Here, again, we must remain sensitive to local variations. Similar political cultures and the weakness of antisemitism in the English-speaking countries may justify devoting a special study of Zionism in that context. It may prove valuable to see how far the shared cultural and political context can be used to explain common features that emerged in the Zionist movements produced by those Jewish communities. I concur, as well, on the fundamental distinction between East and West described by Mendelsohn. American Zionism certainly shares with other Western Zionist movements those traits that he lists. I believe he would agree, however, that these traits do not exhaust the special features of Zionism in America. Determining what the movement in America excluded—aliyah, Gegenwartsarbeit, collective Jewish activity in American politics—constitutes but the first step toward clarifying what it included. To equate Hadassah with philanthropy, as Arnold Eisen has done, is to overlook the organization's educational work and the spiritual contribution of an array of

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leaders, of whom Henrietta Szold was only one. They were committed to a specific kind of philanthropy. Had Hadassah been engaged in an activity that went counter to progressive tenets and the mission motif, it would not have become so popular. Its members' social feminism persistently nourished and sharpened these inclinations. The organization's success, therefore, derived from several mutually complementary factors.1 What was the place of Zionism in the minds of such Reform thinkers as Gottheil and Stephen Wise? In theory, Zionism might have displaced their commitment to the Reform movement and undermined the mission rationale; obviously, this was not the case. To assume the opposite, that Zionism was insignificant for these personalities, would imply that they attached mission to their Zionism merely to make it logically consistent with the Reform pattern, which is how Eisen, in fact, seems to read them. The historical evidence does not support this, either. Zionism was both important enough to them and American enough for them to have its own significance as a democratic and social idea. American Zionists did develop an ideology that reflected the peculiar situation of the Jews in the United States. In addition to the mission idea that I have discussed here, the other significant element was the concept of cultural pluralism as applied to the American context. This, too, was a mission, but an inward-directed one. It was rooted in the American experience and American discourse. Zionists in America, religious and secular alike, embraced the concept and developed it. The mission of Zionism in America was to sustain Judaism as a flourishing civilization, thereby enriching America spiritually and making it more fully democratic. Israel Friedlaender concentrated, as Eisen writes, on the challenges to the religious and cultural survival of Judaism in a pluralistic America. Born in Poland, Friedlaender immigrated to the United States in his late 20s. A noted Semitics scholar and communal leader, who died tragically at the age of 44, he never developed a sophisticated response to American conditions. He was, nevertheless, sensitive enough to his new surroundings to associate a mission rationale with Zionism. Thus, Friedlaender opened and closed the volume in which he published the article referred to by Eisen with mission-oriented addresses. The article itself concluded not simply with a call for Jewish self-realization but also with the hope that America would accord to its Jewish community both trust ("for its loyalty") and esteem ("for its traditions")- Friedlaender quoted from Deutero-Isaiah, the prophet who so often referred to Israel's service among the nations of the world, and ever the favorite of American Zionists. American cultural Zionists who were closer to the American scene—Mordecai Kaplan and Louis Finkelstein, for example—envisioned a Jewish community attuned to the values of the society around them. By the same token, they also expected the endeavor to rebuild Palestine to reflect the highest American and Jewish ideals. Yosef Gorny reminds us that the core of American Zionism, however mission oriented it may have been, was nationalist. After all, he reasons, if the ultimate goal was to contribute to universal values, other avenues were available. The nationalism in Zionism is self-evident; focusing on this barely skirts the edge of tautology. But the greater risk, here, is that of ignoring the American texture of Zionism in the United States.

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One of the reasons that American Zionists found it easy to embrace American nationalism was its ideological quality. Significantly, to be or become American did not require any particular national, linguistic, religious or ethnic background. What was expected was commitment to the political ideals of the society, expressed as liberty, equality and republicanism. The two other aspects of American nationalism—its orientation toward the new and toward the future—are similarly universalistic. Hans Kohn, Oscar Handlin, Yehoshua Arieli and many other students of nationalism and of America have long stressed these traits. The hitherto missing link for our purposes was the impact of American nationalism on the nature of Zionism in the United States. Gorny raises an interesting question: How seriously should we take those universalist qualities as forming the basis of American policies? This theme, again, is certainly not novel. I for one think those values do count, especially in America's domestic affairs. Even if somewhat more tenuous, a correlation between the ethos of a nation—those values, especially, that are put into practice at home—and the kind of foreign policy it conducts, can be discerned. In a country like the United States, they still constitute a permanent challenge. American Jews did take American values very seriously. They worked and strove in the light of these values and, by and large, conscientiously adopted the basic rales of the game. Eventually, they succeeded in improving their own situation dramatically and in the process contributed to American society. American Zionists, of course, were part of this history, and they, too, took the American ideals seriously. The Federation of American Zionists (FAZ) was established on the Fourth of July in 1898. Undoubtedly, apologetics and sensitivity to charges of dual loyalty played a role in the choice of this date, but it was primarily an act of symbolic identification with their country and with the ethos of the Declaration of Independence. It is highly questionable whether a similar phenomenon could have occurred in any European country—certainly not in Eastern Europe. In Palestine, incidentally, the General Federation of Hebrew Workers (the Histadrut) was founded on Hanukkah, the festival of Jewish heroism. Indeed, European Zionists and Palestinian pioneers strove to effect an all-embracing Jewish national renaissance that would encompass their social aspirations, too. American Zionists, on the other hand, were significantly oriented toward the non-Jewish society around them and its professed ideals. Thus, two interwoven factors fostered a strong universalist dimension in American Zionism: the mission idea and the American ethos. This built-in, meta-nationalist element, made American Zionism qualitatively different from European Zionism. I doubt whether merely comparing the relative strengths of the components of this synthesis (Jewish nationalism and social commitment) in America and in Europe could tell us very much. Most of the pioneering Zionists in Palestine actually tended to reject the concept of a "synthesis" between two originally separate elements. In the ideology of mainstream labor Zionism in Palestine, socialism and Zionism were organically blended. The Marxist Zionists did insist on the distinction between the nationalist and the socialist elements and, at the same time, meticulously formulated a "dialectical synthesis" of the two. Of course, European Zionists (Jabotinsky included) aspired to a sovereign Israel that would take its place beside other nations, and would be a cooperative member of the human family. The social vision was often impressive, and the actual social

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accomplishments were remarkable. The European-led Zionist movement differed from other national liberation movements in its social achievements, and it conducted (at least until 1948) an enlightened foreign policy. At the same time, though, it was a movement committed to the attainment of nationalist goals first; and its ideology emphasized values attuned to this priority. In this it was similar to other national movements. Despite exceptions (especially in Western Europe), typical European Zionists and the halutzim building Palestine would have considered a justification of Zionism in terms of its contribution to the world quite superfluous, smacking of apologetics or even servility. Though labor Zionism in America was not very strong, as Arthur Goren rightly indicates, it was still much more accepted and influential than was the Revisionist movement. The Histadrut campaign (geverkshaften campaign) and the youth organizations affiliated with Mapai may not have been central, but they were well established and highly regarded by mainstream American Zionists. The labor Zionist Jewish Frontier was a prestigious periodical that attracted diverse contributors. Hayim Greenberg, the ideological leader of American labor Zionism, was a renowned personality; and Marie Syrkin in her writings and lectures brought the message of constructionist socialism in Palestine to a great many American homes. Even the Marxist halutz movement, Hashomer Hatzair, won the support of Brandeis and Robert Szold as well as of some Hadassah leaders. During the 1930s and early 1940s, this movement exerted major influence on the American Zionist student organization, Avukah. The ideological world of Hashomer Hatzair was very different from that of the Zionist liberals who supported it; but this movement—thanks to its pioneerism and its commitment to building a new society—was perceived as working along lines parallel to mission Zionism and the American ethos. Revisionism, on the other hand, was a nationalist, monist movement that lacked that kind of link, and the American ethos was quite incidental to it. Consider, for example, the autobiography of Ben Hecht, one of the sponsors of Revisionism in America in the 1940s. Hecht's peculiar whims notwithstanding, his argument, that it was only when he felt America was prepared to fight against Germany that he became "also an American" in addition to being a Jew, is typical of this trend.2 Goren has aptly raised the problem of the relation between rhetoric and political reality. When I referred in my article to the "softness" of American ideology, I had in mind (as I noted in my final paragraph) precisely this issue. Was the mission rationale an imperative consideration in the actual making of policy? In the case of Hadassah, I think, the answer is affirmative. Despite the changes it went through, the organization kept a course that was consistently progressive, and it carefully chose its partners in the Zionist movement in light of this course.3 The case of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which Abba Hillel Silver led in the years prior to Israel's establishment, was much more complex. Defining Silver's Zionism as right-wing is somewhat far-fetched, however. He never endorsed Revisionism, and his late anti-labor attitudes often arose as the byproduct of intricate Zionist power politics. Still, on the whole, I would agree that the mission idea was for Silver largely rhetorical during his later years. This undoubtedly reflects the impact on him of the Holocaust. Indeed, as Goren suggests, Nazism, the White Paper and the Holocaust definitely

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helped attenuate the mission motif in American Zionism. I would add to this list Stalinism and Arab terrorism. Here, the challenge for the historian is to check how and when new factors affected traditional concepts. (The historian will note, incidentally, that all these phenomena took place outside the United States, that in America after the Second World War antisemitism was subdued and that there has been a subsequent flourishing of democratic-pluralistic ideologies.) The impact of those factors generally became decisive only in the 1960s and came to full expression for the first time during the Six Day War.4 At the time of Israel's birth (the terminus ad quern of my article), mission notions still largely characterized the major American Zionist organizations. True, the ZOA of 1948 was quite different from that of 1918 when, in the wake of the Balfour Declaration, it had adopted with missionist zeal its very progressive Pittsburgh Program. Still, in its fifty-first convention, held in July 1948, the ZOA reendorsed it. When the delegates did so with "roaring approval," they did not consider its details—such as the application of the "cooperative principle" in agriculture and industry. Instead, they expressed their enthusiasm and pride in the enlightened young state that deeply appealed both to their lingering mission inclinations and to their American republicanism.5 Similarly, the Hadassah of the 1940s was different from that of the 1930s when Rose Jacobs, an enthusiast of binationalism, had been its dominating president. And yet, Hadassah's statements during the years 1947-49 often described the embattled Israelis as aspiring to fulfill the sublime ideals shared by their predecessors—the Maccabees and the American revolutionists of 1776.6 Horace Kallen, perhaps the foremost secular proponent of mission Zionism, lived long enough to visit Israel in the 1950s. On his return he wrote Utopians at Bay, which concluded with his hope that Israel would eventually fulfill its essential role—a contribution toward a world order of freedom, peace and humanism. Kallen was faithful to the missionist treatise, "The Ethics of Zionism," that he had written some fifty years earlier. Another eminent mission Zionist was the writer, Ludwig Lewisohn, who edited New Palestine, the major publication of the ZOA. In his books, articles and editorials, Lewisohn envisioned the birth of Israel as a means to set aright the suffering of a bewildered humanity. Maurice Samuel a widely read author who was perhaps the most sought-after Zionist lecturer of the time, was also a mission-oriented Zionist. On the whole, Goren again has a point when he suggests that the events of the 1940s invalidated the universal errand of the American mission Zionists. A great many mission Zionists did draw this conclusion. Louis D. Brandeis himself, always a keen realist, began from the early 1930s to deemphasize the mission rationale. To be sure, progressive and ethical tenets retained their hold for him; but, at the same time, his new version of Zionism was somewhat more nationalistic and certainly more worldly and somber. The case of Silver has already been cited, and one can add others to this list. Undoubtedly, the survivalist motif in American Zionism gradually grew in significance. Still, this was not a unilinear historical development. During the late 1940s and the 1950s, important American Jewish organizations fell under the influence of Zionism. Though this process unfolded mainly under the impact of the Second World War and the establishment of Israel, the influence of America itself should

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always be given its due weight. These new recruits to the Zionist movement often brought with them a passionate attachment to the American ethos. Factors such as these have worked to maintain mission motifs even in present-day American Zionism. In a word, a comprehensive study of the mission motif in American Zionism (or now, American Jewish pro-lsraelism) should not be confined to the traditional Zionist organizations.

Notes 1. No scholarly work on Hadassah's history and specific character has yet been published. See Carol B. Kutscher, "The Early Years of Hadassah, 1912-1921" (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1976). 2. Ben Hecht, A Child of the Century (New York: 1954), 518, 550. 3. Allon Gal, "Medinat yisrael haideialit be'einei 'hadassah,' 1945-1955," Yahadut zemanenu 4 (1987), 157-170. 4. The very gradual impact of the Holocaust on American Jewry is suggested among other things by the fact that it was only in the 1960s that the term itself was introduced to designate the destruction of European Jewry. See Leon A. Jick, "The Holocaust: Its Use and Abuse Within the American Public," Yad Vashem Studies 15 (1983), 303-318. 5. New Palestine 38, no. 22 (23 July 1948), 3-5. 6. See n. 3.

Letter to the Editor Michael /. Cohen (BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY)

To the Editor: Dr. Wasserstein's review of my book, Churchill and the Jews, (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, vol. 4, 1988) it seems to me, deliberately, even if elegantly, sidestepped the key issues I dealt with. Instead, he chose the more facile method of personal attack on the author. I am accused of "wholesale plundering of the opponent's ammunition magazine," of trying to have my "sour grapes and eat them," and that I failed "to penetrate (let alone emulate) [Churchill's] supreme generosity of spirit." Perhaps most serious, Dr. Wasserstein insinuates that I did not even bother to look at Churchill's private papers, as have other historians. Two of the above accusations can be disposed of immediately. The Foreword of my book (p. xi) stated quite clearly that the trustees of the Churchill private archives "have determined on their closure to the general public until ten years after the publication of the last volume of the authorised biography." I have since made available to Dr. Wasserstein and to the editors of this journal the letter from the Churchill archives' trustees affirming their closure, as stated in my foreword. To write in his review that I did not state even if I had made an application to the archives is surely disingenuous, at the very least. But the greatest injury, in my opinion, was caused by the reviewer's failure even to hint at most of the major issues I dealt with: 1. Churchill's imperialist outlook, which led him from 1919—21 (as secretary of state for war, the colonial secretary) repeatedly to urge Prime Minister Lloyd George to return the Middle East mandates (including Palestine) to Turkey. 2. The fact that during the 1920s, Chancellor of the Exchequer Churchill harmed Jewish interests by making Palestine (in healthy surplus owing to revenue from Jewish sources) pay a large part of Transjordan's administrative costs (over the protests of Colonial Secretary Amery and of High Commissioner Plumer). 3. Churchill's plan in 1937 for restricting land sales, and Jewish immigration into Palestine—a precursor of the 1939 White Paper. 4. Why the 1939 White Paper was not mitigated by Prime Minister Churchill during World War Two. (There was no relaxation of the immigration restrictions, notwithstanding knowledge of the Holocaust.) 275

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5, Churchill's failure to take any active, consistent interest in the Auschwitz bombing project and his effective consignment of the projects to secondary priority, leaving it to the mercy of the officials. 6. Why Churchill dropped the Zionist cause after the murder of Lord Moyne in 1944 and failed to answer all Zionist appeals after the war to speak out for them against the Bevin-Attlee anti-Zionist policies? My central thesis was that statesmen are to be judged by their actions, not by their rhetoric (for which Churchill was infamous), and much less by any good intentions, or "generosity of spirit" (even if accompanied by tears flowing down cheeks!). As a historian, I deal with facts, with end results. And like many before me, I found Churchill wanting in this category. These are the points dealt with at length in my book. I am still waiting for a scholarly refutation. MICHAEL J. COHEN Bar-Han University

Review Essays


The Jewish Woman: Traditions and Transitions Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law. New York: Schocken Books, 1984. Blu Greenberg, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1981. Susannah Heschel (ed.), On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader. New York: Schocken Books, 1983. Elizabeth Koltun (ed.), The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives. New York: Schocken Books, 1976. Moshe Meiselman, Jewish Woman in Jewish Law. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1978. In the summer of 1984 the annual American-Israel dialogue at the Van Leer Institute organized by the American Jewish Congress was devoted to the theme of "Woman as Jew, Jew as Woman: An Urgent Inquiry." A surprising fact emerged from the sessions. On general women's issues such as those involving the labor force or politics, the delegates representing the two communities had a great deal in common, as women. But when it came to specifically Jewish women's issues, for example, in the area of religion, they could hardly communicate. When the American Jewish women brought up questions of women in the synagogue and in the rabbinate, female spirituality, women's rituals, feminist theology, the Israelis, except for a handful of new immigrants, had no idea of what was being discussed. The terms of reference were entirely foreign to them. No native Israelis attended a women's minyan held during the conference. And that which for the Israelis was the most burning "Jewish" issue—the role of women in marriage and divorce law, including the problem of the 'agunah—seemed secondary to many of the Americans. These differences are attributable to a number of factors—differences in the nature of Jewish identity in the two communities, in the structure of the religious establishments, in the role that halakhah plays in the life of the two societies. But they also reflect an interesting lacuna in the consciousness of otherwise educated, culturally sophisticated Israelis. Feminism as an ideological movement and women's studies as an intellectual perspective have made some small but important inroads in Israel, affecting some areas of academic life, notably in the humanities and social sciences. But in the area of Jewish studies and Jewish culture, their effect has until very recently been marginal. The Traditional-Conservative and Progressive-Reform movements here have 279

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been much less liberal on these issues than their Diaspora counterparts. They have been reluctant—or at least slow—to admit women as rabbinical students in their Israeli seminaries, stating their feeling that the Orthodox establishment would be far more antagonistic toward a female Reform rabbi than toward her male colleagues. None of the important books or articles in the field have been translated into Hebrew, and they are rarely reviewed or even mentioned in Israeli publications. A recent international conference on women and halakhah, held in Jerusalem, went largely unnoticed in the Hebrew press. However, the forthcoming yearbook of the Encyclopedia Judaica will include an entire section on Jewish women's studies. And the present opportunity to review a number of the most important books in this field for a Hebrew University annual is much appreciated. It is to be hoped that these developments herald a trend, at least within Israeli academia, if not yet within the society at large. The present essay treats five works, two of which are collections of articles,1 that were published in the United States between 1976 and 1984 by a variety of authors at various points of the Jewish spectrum. Not all of the writing is serious; little of it is scholarly. There are several pieces rendered very important either by the impressive level of the thought and writing, the originality of the analysis or the influence that the work has had on subgroups within the Jewish community. But taken as a whole, these books are important as a reflection of a phenomenon within the contemporary situation of American Jewry and, to a somewhat lesser extent, other Diaspora communities; they should not be viewed as merely a passing fad. The revolution transforming the role of women in contemporary Jewish life predates the women's liberation movement of the 1960s. It has its roots in the Haskalah of Western Europe, which included in its program ideas for educational reform, for example, the introduction of secular studies in the curriculum and modernizing the structure of the school. "One of the strategies for promoting and spreading the new education was to deal with parts of the population which had not received high priority in the traditional educational system, and thus pre-empt some of the Orthodox objection to opening schools. Among these elements of the population were girls."2 The previous neglect of the girls was due to the obligation of Torah study being binding only on men, not on women. The founder of the Neo-Orthodox movement in Germany, Samson Raphael Hirsch, encouraged the establishment of schools for girls.3 In Eastern Europe there was no comparable movement for the synthesis of modernity and the religious tradition. There, economic necessities determined that Jewish women would have to acquire general linguistic and vocational skills in order to support their families while their husbands learned Torah. The girls, attending non-Jewish schools, were exposed to various new ideas, from romantic love to socialism, and they began to question the religious values that they had been taught by their parents. The legendary intergenerational harmony of the Jewish household was being threatened. Similar problems were experienced in other communities. It is important to note that during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a general struggle was going on in terms of women's higher education, particularly in North America and Great Britain. The increasing availability to women of secular education on a high level only served to emphasize the discrepancy between their secular and Jewish

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knowledge. As Rudolf Glanz notes,4 by the 1920s there was "a new anxiety previously unknown to Judaism—an anxiety about the religious education of our women." In 1932 Mordecai Kaplan wrote, "It is seldom noted that the Jewish Emancipation, or the change in the civic status of the Jew, has alienated the Jewish woman from Judaism far more than the Jewish man. . . . [U]ntil our own day Jewish women who felt the impact of the Jewish Emancipation usually developed a negative attitude towards things Jewish."5 He called for an enhanced role for women in Jewish education as a remedy. Significantly, many of the outstanding Jewish women of this period—Henrietta Szold in the United States, Berthe Pappenheim in Germany and Lily Montagu in England—put educational concerns at the top of their personal and communal agendas. Leaders of the Orthodox community in Palestine or in Eastern Europe still often preferred that the girls study in alien non-Jewish environments than that they be taught traditional Judaism in a school setting. The latter they considered an outright violation of the prescribed women's role within Judaism. In 1903 at a conference of Polish rabbis held in Cracow, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Lando, the Admor of Zvirtche, blamed his colleagues for neglecting the education of Jewish girls and called for the establishment of schools to deal with the problem. His suggestion was almost unanimously opposed.6 It took a dedicated and courageous woman named Sarah Schenirer to initiate the change. Influenced by a brief period in Vienna during the First World War when she was exposed to the spirit of German Neo-Orthodoxy, Schenirer founded the Bais Ya'akov movement in Poland in 1917. Beginning with a kindergarten class of twenty-five pupils in Cracow, the movement grew to encompass almost forty thousand girls on the eve of the Second World War, having spread to several continents and established day schools, afternoon schools, teachers' seminaries, summer camps, youth groups, a monthly journal and a publishing house for textbooks and other educational materials.7 Since the founding of Bais Ya'akov, all trends within the Jewish community, even the most extreme among the ultra-Orthodox, have accepted the concept of schools for girls. During a recent dispute over the permissibility of separate women's prayer groups, Rivkeh Haul, a Gemarah teacher from Brooklyn, said, "It's never been done for women to take ritual into their own hands. . ,. . Now, with educated women, they want a piece of the action. Before, women couldn't read and understand. Now, we're pumped full of education and yet they still expect us to sit passively behind the mechitzah."8 In previous generations many women in attempts to fulfill themselves intellectually and professionally simply left the Jewish community. This historical reality is reflected in, for example, the novels of I. B. Singer and Anzia Yezierska. But now, other options are available within the framework of the organized Jewish community. The founding members of 'Ezrat Nashim, the first religious Jewish feminist group—started in New York in the early 1970s—were largely graduates of day schools and Hebrew-speaking summer camps, with much stronger than average Jewish educational backgrounds. Thus, the contemporary Jewish women's movement is not only a product of women's liberation in the United States in the late

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1960s but also of internal changes that have taken place within the Jewish community over the last century or so. It can be viewed as part of a general revival within American Jewish culture during this period that gave rise to other numerically small, but culturally significant phenomena such as the havurot, The Jewish Catalogue, Response and other magazines and the Coalition for Alternatives in Jewish Education. In his book, A Certain People, Charles Silberman writes, "In the long run, the energy being released by the Jewish women's movement is likely to provide the most important source of religious renewal."9 The original thrust of 'EzratNashim and similar groups was to gain equal access for women to positions of leadership in Jewish religious communal life. This trend began with participation in synagogue ritual (e.g., 'aliyot for women) and culminated in the ordination of women to the rabbinate in all three non-Orthodox movements. Only later did Jewish feminists turn their attention to such questions as the existence of a unique women's spirituality or the development of a new approach, for example, to textual interpretation, Jewish history and Jewish thought, and incorporate women's individual and collective experience. Members of 'EzratNashim were invited by the editorial board of Response to put together a special issue, anthologizing articles on "The Jewish Woman." The issue appeared in the summer of 1973. It included pieces that had been published previously—most notably, an article called "The Jew Who Wasn't There: Halacha and the Jewish Woman," by Rachel Adler, which had appeared in Davka as early as the summer of 1971, thus making it one of the first statements in the corpus of Jewish feminist literature—as well as some new material. Nine of the original Response articles formed the basis for The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives, edited by Elizabeth Koltun, who had also edited the Response anthology. To these were added sixteen more articles and a new introduction. The tone of the latter collection was more serious, more mature and less strident than that in Response. There are more male authors and two non-Jews (Carol Christ and Phyllis Trible). Both anthologies show a heavy emphasis on issues of participation in ritual, linked both to the calendar and to the life cycle. There is much less emphasis on feminine theology and "the spiritual quest" than there would be in a comparable gentile publication. This reflects a general Jewish bias toward law and away from theology, and it is perhaps significant that in New Perspectives, one of the two articles on theology is written by a Christian. There is also an under-emphasis on issues relating to marriage and divorce. This may be due both to the fact that the editor and many of the authors are, themselves, single (one of the articles is entitled, "Single and Jewish: Toward a New Definition of Completeness") as well as that nonOrthodox Jews in America are not bound by halakhah in these areas. These two collections were, in a sense, pioneering efforts that defined a field. Some of the later books, which will be discussed in this essay, use them as a kind of reference point. However, Koltun's book is of uneven quality. It includes both "The Status of Women in Halakhic Judaism" by Saul Berman, one of the major articles in the field, which first appeared in Tradition in 1973 and broke new ground in its analysis of Jewish women's "sources of discontent," 10 and a selection called "Models from Our Past," one of the first analyses of scholarly works-in-progress in the area of Jewish women's history. At the same time, one finds pieces that show


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overly simplistic, unsophisticated approaches to the development of Jewish law or that quote the novel Exodus as a source for analyzing the role of women in Israel. The largest single topic covered is "New Ritual," with an article by Arlene Agus, "This Month Is for You: Observing Rosh Hodesh as a Woman's Holiday," that has become a practical guide for many women's groups in at least three countries (United States, Canada and Israel). The next work to be considered is that of Moshe Meiselman, published in 1978; in some ways this is a response to Koltun. On August 9, 1974,1 wrote a review for the Jerusalem Post of the Response anthology and Women and the Mitzvot, a Hebrew compendium edited by Rabbi Getzel Ellinson. The review included the following comment: What is perhaps most needed is more interaction between the two communities and two universes of discourse represented by these two books. Those who will read and appreciate "The Jewish Woman" must gain an understanding of the profundity and complexity of Jewish law before they make their radical demands for changing it. Those who will read and appreciate Ha'isha veha'mitzvot [Women and the Mitzvot] must begin to see the crucial need for a reappraisal of the traditional role of the woman in the synagogue, the religious court, the world of Jewish education, and community life.

Meiselman has undertaken the dialogue. As Norman Lamm writes in his introduction to Meiselman's book, "One need not agree with every position taken by the author to be grateful to him for his reasoned analysis" (p. ix). As a teaching tool, it is instructive to compare Meiselman with, for instance, Berman, in order to see the range of opinion within even the modern Orthodox Yeshiva University community. As an example, Meiselman states categorically, "Women are not permitted under any circumstances to wear tefillin" (p. 150). Berman, on the other hand, writes, "A small number of religious women have begun donning tallit and tefillin daily, and have, in so doing, discovered a vital source of religious expression and strength" (Koltun, p. 123). Both authors cite halakhic sources to support their positions. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to picture the Israeli rabbinate coming out with a book like this. Meiselman shows familiarity with Greek drama and with Kierkegaard as well as with the writings (mentioned earlier) of Rachel Adler. The relative liberality of his position is evidenced by his strong emphasis on prayer and Torah study for women as well as the concluding statement of his chapter on 'agunah, "It is incumbent on the observant Jewish community to devise halakhically valid means of enforcing the orders of a bet-din through the civil courts" (p. 115). To be sure, there are many books far to the right of this— published by Habad, Agudat Israel and the ultra-Orthodox yeshiva world—that would present a more conservative, apologetic position on these issues. Still, except for a rather narrow acknowledgement of changes in Torah education for women, Jewish Woman in Jewish Law is characterized by a refusal to admit the role of sociology or, indeed, any meta-halakhic considerations within halakhic development. There is also here an interesting rejection of what used to be a mainstream Orthodox position, the aspiration to achieve a synthesis between Jewish and modern culture. Going back to Hirsch and the philosophy of Torah im derkh

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erez, students at Yeshiva University until recently were imbued with the ideal of synthesis. Meiselman, on the other hand, states: A Jew who takes the divine directive with the utmost seriousness and also lives in another culture can never lead an authentically bicultural existence. He may speak the language and have the intellectual veneer of the other culture . . . but if he takes the divine directive seriously, he is but a visitor in the other culture. . . . [This keeps] the technical arguments of halakhic discourse free of any cultural bias (p. 161).

This position appears disingenuous. Meiselman carries it much further when, in discussing the permissibility of women dancing with Torah scrolls on Simhat Torah he writes, "Proper synagogue behavior is determined by practice and tradition. Since it has been the age-old practice of synagogues that women do not dance with Torah scrolls during hakafot, the introduction of this practice would be a violation of synagogue etiquette" (p. 146). It is perhaps for this reason that he completely ignores the bat-mitzvah and other life cycle rituals that have been successfully introduced into Orthodox communities. Customs do change, as Meiselman himself pointed out with regard to Torah study, or as Rav Yaakov Yehiel Weinberg noted in his famous responsum on mixed choirs in a youth movement, or Rav Ouziel in his responsum on women's suffrage. 11 If we carry this anti-change position to its reactionary conclusion, we arrive at the approach of Meiselman's Yeshiva University colleague, Rabbi Yehuda Parnes. Parnes is quoted as having said that "a minhag of no innovations has been in effect for at least the last two hundred years. According to this viewpoint, the position of Kol Gedolei Israel has been that innovation may be reflective of ideologies inimical to Yiddishkeit."12 In addition to the innovation of the Bais Ya'akov schools, how would Parnes and Meiselman treat the innovations of Samson Raphael Hirsch, religious Zionism, the celebration of Yom Ha'azmaut and Yom Yerushalayim, women's suffrage, Stern College and, indeed, Yeshiva University itself? A much more balanced view of the relationship between halakhah and changing social reality is expressed in Rachel Biale's fine book Women and Jewish Law. Law sometimes lags behind social reality and sometimes anticipates it. ... Historical study of halakhic sources shows that the mechanisms for change and the openness of the tradition in preserving minority opinions have been primary factors in assuring the perpetuation of the legal system. A historical perspective further shows that the attempt to present a monolithic and extremely conservative portrait of the halakhah is more characteristic of the response of modern Jewish Orthodoxy to secularism than a central feature of the halakhah in earlier periods (pp. 4-5). Biale gives a rationale for the study of halakhic sources, even on the part of those who do not accept the divine imperative: It is a way of learning which engages the sources in intellectual and personal spheres, allowing them to become part of one's vocabulary and world of associations, without necessarily becoming prescriptions for daily life. In order to engage in meaningful Jewish discourse today, and to formulate personal and communal ways of "being Jewish" in the modern period, it is necessary to acquire a


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shared "Jewish language," which is the language of the traditional Jewish sources (pp. 8-9). In a deviation from the approach of many American Jews, as noted earlier (perhaps because Biale herself is an Israeli living in America), only one chapter deals with women and their obligations in terms of ritual mitzvot. Nine additional chapters discuss, for example, marriage, divorce, sexuality, nidah, contraception and abortion. In these areas the dynamic character of the halakhah is more evident than in the area of synagogue participation. The book makes extensive use of primary source material and commentaries. In the epilogue, there is an attempt to present various contemporary alternatives to the general status of women in Judaism. As Biale herself notes, her book needs a companion volume, ' 'A social history of Jewish women remains to be written" (p. 4). And there is room, too, for studies in this spirit of the image of women in the Bible and rabbinic literature—theological and spiritual questions, in other words, women in agadah as well as in halakhah. A brief methodological chapter, explaining some of the principles through which halakhah develops and a section on the participation of women in public life would have been excellent additions to what is, otherwise, a very useful textbook. A much more personal style is evident in Blu Greenberg's anecdotal book On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition. Greenberg has been roundly criticized in the pages of Tradition for her unscholarly approach and her overly glib implications that "where there's a rabbinic will, there's a Halakhic way."13 But if Greenberg's book is not intended to be the definitive statement on the topic, it has importance in role modeling. Her commitment both to the Jewish tradition and to feminist values and her attempts to synthesize the two, particularly in the area of marriage and family life and the laws of nidah, are unique in the literature now extant. Greenberg rejects both fundamentalism and compartmentalization and indicates ways in which a dialogue could take place between Judaism and feminism: "We can find ways within halakhah to allow for growth and greater equality in the ritual and spiritual realms, despite the fact that there are no guarantees where this will lead us" (p. 42). In the opinion of Susannah Heschel, the answer is that it will not lead very far. In the introduction to On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader, she writes: This approach may make certain Orthodox opponents more sympathetic to feminism, but it does not stem from a coherent theological position. The historical method cannot be applied only in some areas and not in others. Once we acknowledge the laws regarding women as products of a particular historical period and outlook, what is to keep us from considering other Jewish practices—such as the synagogue service—as a comparable historical outgrowth that has outlived its meaning and relevance? In fact, the entire system of Halakha might be similarly regarded as the religious expression of a particular community, living in Palestine and Babylonia nearly two thousand years ago. If the Talmud is the product of a particular time and particular individuals, what religious authority does it hold, and why should we return to it after discovering teachings and rulings within it that limit and oppress us? (p. xxi). One may take exception to this analysis, as I will attempt to do, but it is an argument that must be confronted seriously. Of all the works being considered here,

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Heschel's shows the most comprehensive understanding of feminism and the challenges it poses to traditional Judaism. On the most basic level, Heschel shows how in the Jewish tradition Man is the norm, whereas Woman is the "Other." "The challenge emerging today demands a Copernican revolution: a new theology of Judaism, requiring new understanding of God, revelation, Halakhah, and the Jewish people in order to support and encourage change" (p. xxiii). Heschel sees the basic problem as "the morbid condition" (wouldn't moribund have been the more correct term? [D.W.]) of Judaism in the modern period, with feminism as its "crucible." The scope of the essays in this reader is broader than that of Koltun's book. A full third of the material is devoted to theological questions. Subjects previously tabooed such as lesbianism and battered wives are treated here. Reflecting its later date of publication (1983), Heschel can shift the focus away from issues of equal access, many of which have been resolved in the non-Orthodox community. There is even an article called "Reactions to a Woman Rabbi." Perhaps the most important contribution of this book is a debate between Cynthia Ozick and Judith Plaskow. Plaskow contends that "The Right Question Is Theological"; Ozick in "Notes on Finding the Right Question," maintains it is legalsociological. If, indeed, "the right question" is much deeper than Ozick seems to indicate, the dilemma becomes, as Heschel puts it, "What will remain as recognizably Judaism? What criteria, what grounds of authority, will be used to retain some aspects of Judaism, while rejecting or radically modifying others?" (p. xxiii). This debate could be enhanced and enriched by exposure to secular Israeli sources. Insights derived from the work of Gershom Scholem, Eliezer Schweid and the Shdemot-Oranim group of thinkers and writers would be interesting and, perhaps, helpful. But again, in this book, as in Koltun's, the material on Israel is superficial, reflecting the sad fact that a profound dialogue on Jewish issues rarely takes place between representatives of the two communities. And, if the key word is to be dialogue, as called for by Greenberg, Heschel seems to see it going in one direction only. One can apply historical methodology to issues beyond feminism— even using her example, the synagogue service itself—without losing a commitment to the halakhic system. One is surprised that a young woman who grew up in the community of the Jewish Theological Seminary should see reality as being so dichotomized. Heschel seems to have internalized a certain view of halakhah, precisely the view against which both Greenberg and Biale argue. An immersion in rabbinic sources would indicate that blind obedience to authority is not their dominant theme, but rather the creative use of reasoned argument in interpretation and legislation— legislation that is characterized by ethical values, sensitivity to human needs, an attempt to balance individual and communal concerns and majority rule. Eliezer Berkovits calls halakhah "the wisdom of the feasible" and "the priority of the ethical";14 David Hartman writes, "Whereas the Bible liberates the moral will, the Talmud liberates the intellect."15 Biale has noted that within the halakhah, ' 'we can see a gradual and persistent effort to redress the fundamental imbalance in power between men and women which characterizes biblical law" (p. 5). To be sure, the talent and experience of at least half the Jewish people has been

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largely untapped in the development of halakhah and should begin to be incorporated as quickly as possible. But that statement could, unfortunately, be made of classical music, the sciences, philosophy and many other vast areas of human cultural endeavor; so, are we simply to jettison the entire heritage of the civilized world and start all over from scratch? Baroque music or metaphysical poetry should not make any less of a claim on us as cultured people simply because most, if not all, of their creators were men. If the dialogue called for by Greenberg is to be honest, feminist insights must be open to criticism and analysis as well. Feminists must be capable of doing what the sociologist Peter Berger16 has called "relativizing the relativizers"—looking at themselves, their own period and their own beliefs in a historically relative light. As to the theological argument, it is refreshing and exciting to find that contemporary Jews are dealing with questions of God and liturgy in a serious way. Plaskow's "The Right Question Is Theological" and a later essay, "Language, God, and Liturgy: A Feminist Perspective"17 are among the most original, stimulating works of this kind that the present author has seen. For the first time in centuries or perhaps millennia, Jews are being challenged to define what we mean by 'avodah zarah (idolatry) and to explain why we believe what we believe. A comprehensive response to feminist theology and its extreme form, "goddess worship," from a Jewish point of view, is beyond the scope of this essay.18 Suffice it to say that it is in fact two men, Arthur Green and Arthur Waskow, who point out the richness of the Jewish tradition in providing sources for other feminine images of the Divine (see Heschel, 248-272).19 There may indeed be room to incorporate many of these images and insights into a "normative" Jewish theological approach, as indicated by the mystical Shir hakavod: They imaged You, but not as You are; They adjudged You only through Your deeds. They conceived of You through many visions, Yet You remain One, within all the images. As should be apparent by now, there has been some serious thought and writing on contemporary issues of women and Judaism, but much more remains to be undertaken. Whole areas of philosophy, social history, contemporary Jewry and exegesis, for example, have been largely untouched. In March 1987, a conference at Yeshiva University—for the first time—raised questions regarding the history of Jewish women's education in modern times and its implications for contemporary questions. As Paula Hyman has indicated,20 by incorporating a women's studies perspective into our study of Jewish history, we may be called on to reformulate basic questions, categories and definitions of spirituality, Jewish identity, modernity, community and elite as opposed to folk religion. The future promises to be stimulating—especially so if it can be part of a dialogue between Israeli and Diaspora Jews—and not remain confined to ' 'The Torah coming out of Riverdale and the Word of the Lord from Los Angeles.'' DEBORAH WEISSMAN The Hebrew University

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1. Those by Heschel and Koltun. 2. Rahel Elboim-Dror, Hahinukh ha'ivri beerez yisrael (Jerusalem: 1986), 1, 50. 3. See Mordecai Eliav, Hahinukh hayehudi begermaniah biyemei hahaskalah vehaemanzipaziah (Jerusalem: 1961), 271–279. 4. In The Jewish Woman in America, vol. I, The Eastern European Jewish Woman (New York: 1976), 69. 5. "What the American Jewish Woman Can Do for Adult Jewish Education," in Jewish Education 4, no. 3 (1932), 139. 6. See Aharon Sorski, Toldot hahinukh hatorani batekufah hahadashah (Bene Berak: 1967). 7. Deborah Weissman, "Bais Ya'akov, a Women's Educational Movement in the Polish Jewish Community: A Case Study in Tradition and Modernity" (M.A. thesis, New York University, 1977). 8. As quoted in Larry Cohler, "Orthodox Rabbis' Response Condemns Women's Prayer Groups," The Jewish World, 15/21 February 1985, 15. 9. Charles Silberman, A Certain People: American Jews and Their Lives Today (New York: 1985), 262. 10. Koltun, Jewish Woman, 114. 11. See Yehezkel Cohen, "Haishah bamishpahah uvahevrah: 'avar vehoveh," inHaishah betmurot hazman: 'iyun behagut uvehalakhah (Tel-Aviv: 1984), 21-85; and "Hamahloket bein harabanim Kook veUziel z"zl," in Hagut: haishah bemekorot hayahadut (Jerusalem: 1973), 83-95. These are, undoubtedly, the two best volumes available in Hebrew on the subject of women and Judaism and ought to be translated into English. 12. Bulletin of the Women's Tefilah Network 2, no. 3 (1987), 6. 13. See Naomi Y. Englard-Schaffer, "Review Essay: On Blu Greenberg's On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition," Tradition 21, no. 2, 132-145; and Emanuel Feldman, "Women and Judaism," Tradition 21, no. 3, 98-106. 14. Eliezer Berkovits, Not in Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halakha (New York: 1983), vii. 15. David Hartman, A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism (New York: 1985), 32. 16. Peter Berger, A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (Garden City: 1970), 28-48. 17. Response 13, no. 4, (Spring 1983), 3-14. 18. See Sh'ma 16/305 (10 Jan. 1986); Sh'ma 17/325 (9 Jan. 1987); and Tikkun 1, no. 2, 28-34. 19. In a previous "gilgul," Arthur Green, under the pseudonym of Itzik Lodzer, wrote about this view of God in "Psychedelics and Kabbalah" which appeared in Response 2, no. 1 (Winter 1968) and was anthologized in James Sleeper and Alan Mintz (eds.), The New Jews (New York: 1971). 20. Lecture notes from my course on "The Jewish Woman: Traditions and Transitions," Spring 1986.

New York Intellectuals Alexander Bloom, Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. xii + 461 pp. Alan M. Wald, The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the AntiStalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1987. xvi + 440 pp.

"They live quickly and die young," said Vladimir Medem of his fellow-Russian revolutionists, and the memory of those who suffered and died consecrated a Russian revolutionary tradition of martyrdom. Revolutionists in America, however, are more fortunate than those in Tsarist Russia. They rarely die young but turn gray and leave the movement for banal careers as businessmen or lawyers or civil servants. Even worse they embarrass and anger their former comrades and younger successors by changing their mind, as often happens, about the whole enterprise of revolution. Thus, there has not been much opportunity to consecrate an American tradition of revolutionary martyrdom. Trade union and civil rights organizers more than once paid dearly for venturing into dangerous territory, but these victims were seldom revolutionists. If American revolutionary groups have had to spend little time in memorializing, they have consumed a mountain of energy in settling accounts with "renegades" and "apostates," those who did not disappear quietly but attached themselves to another ideology. The present book by Alan M. Wald settles not a few accounts. However, it also seeks to redeem somewhat the talented, lost comrades of the 1930s by observing that they made a stop—too often forgotten—on their way out of the revolutionary ranks. After they rejected Communism [capital "C"], meaning the Russian regime under Stalin's rale, they did not simply drift into social democratic and liberal ranks. Beginning with Max Eastman and Sidney Hook during the 1930s, they devoted themselves "to developing a revolutionary communist [small "c"] Left in opposition to official Communism, or 'Stalinism' " (pp. v, 5). Many of them have simply forgotten this phase. Now Wald, who teaches English at the University of Michigan, has made it the object of his substantial book to recover this moment. Wald's purpose is not only to set the record straight. He has in mind that "many young radical intellectuals in search of a Marxian tradition among the American intelligentsia have turned elsewhere" (p. 4), thinking that anti-Stalinism must lead to reconciliation with capitalism. He is at pains to emphasize that true anticommunism dwelt with the revolutionary left, for otherwise it became indistinguishable from "cold war liberalism" exemplified by the likes of Arthur M. Schlesinger. 289

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Professing a ''Marxist commitment'' (p. 22), Wald will be happy if ''this book will also help allay the process of deradicalization that eventually overtakes almost all whose lives are based on institutions of teaching, scholarship, and publishing during conservative periods" (p. 13). Is he advising his colleagues how they can keep the radical faith green during the parched 1980s? He intends to reassert the "potential of a tradition of radical political and cultural activity that is both Marxist and antiStalinist" (p. 23). Wald appears to be a Trotskyite and regards the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917 as "a worker-peasant revolution" (p. 23) under Lenin's leadership. The Revolution was betrayed when Stalin and not Trotsky acquired total control after Lenin died. There was an "eventual loss of political power by the workers" (p. 189), if one believes, of course, that they ever possessed it. Things would have been better with Trotsky on top, judging (as his followers did) from the appealing figure of the sharp-witted, somewhat patriarchal and thoroughly informed leader in exile. But Trotsky in power meant a dictatorship, only one party and world communism ruled from Moscow; instead of mass terror there would be selective terror. Only in appearances have we strayed from Wald's New York leftist intellectuals of the 1930s. Their thoughts dwelled on Russia as the center and as the measuring rod of true radicalism, not on America of the New Deal and not much even on Nazi Germany. Wald admirably recreates their world, helped here by his own avowed commitments. His book is full of excellent short biographies of the men (and one woman, Mary McCarthy) who constitute an extraordinary gallery of intellectual talent. A large majority were Jews, specifically children of East European immigrants; the others were Irish and patrician Americans. This Jewish prominence is dismissed somewhat impatiently as lacking significance because Jews were prominent in all radical movements (pp. 9-10). Although this is true enough, it is not Wald but Alexander Bloom who seeks to explain this. Wald ought to try harder than he has. In another passage, however (p. 45), he takes the question of Jewish prominence more seriously, observing briefly that in America there were factors to radicalize Jews of immigrant stock, for example, a large Jewish working class and virulent antisemitism. After the Second World War both factors declined considerably and so did Jewish—as well as general—radicalism. The New Left of the late 1960s, in which young Jews again shone, was a full generation removed from the days of the Jewish working class and antisemitic peril. Then, too, was radical politics an avenue of upward mobility? But this also begs the central question because we should also consider other contemporary immigrant stocks: Greeks, Poles, Italians and many others—not to mention blacks—who also had ample desire to rise socially. Why were radical politics not a ladder of mobility for them? In other words, what made radicalism a path of upward mobility specifically for Jews? As to their personal identity as Jews, none denied it, but it interested them very little and they rather expected all such parochial identities to merge into the greater concerns of the world's proletariat. Wald apologetically insists that "assimilation" in their usage did not mean merger with the dominant culture (p. 383, n. 48). I think this is true, but they insisted that there were no distinct or specific Jewish problems, and they

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denied that the Jews, whatever they were part of, also constituted a group that was whole in itself and merited serious attention as such. The Great Depression radicalized the young Jewish men of letters in the circle around Elliot E. Cohen's Menorah Journal. From interest in finding a Jewish place within American culture, they turned toward political radicalism. Cohen himself, Felix Morrow, Lionel Trilling and Herbert Solow were among them. They, and young men of the stature of Sidney Hook, Edmund Wilson, F. W. Dupee, Meyer Schapiro and Philip Rahv briefly signed up with Communism. Others, not part of Wald's narrative, became and stayed Communists. The literary record of these intellectuals is distinguished. Wald fields skillfully the reconciliation of literary modernism, which included political reactionaries like Pound and Eliot, with revolutionary leftism in the pages of the Partisan Review. However, Wald's analysis of Tess Slesinger's The Unpossessed (pp. 64-74) is much in excess of that novel's merit, merely because he can plausibly identify its characters with members of the Menorah group. On the other hand, he admires Edmund Wilson's To the Finland Station (pp. 157-161) and recognizes its debt to Max Eastman's dismissal of Marxism as science. However, I found the discussion of Trilling's 1946 story "The Other Margaret" altogether repellent. As Trilling turned "apostate," he is hectored in agitprop fashion. Thus, the story "reveals an increasing blindness to his own ideological transgressions ... a highly loaded assault on the radical analysis of and solution to race and class oppression; indeed, one might even call it the first antiaffirmative action story" (p. 234). Discussion of the same sort is unleashed against Sidney Hook, who probably qualifies as the author's bete noire, but who, unlike Trilling, is an eager and formidable controversialist. To Hook's qualified defense in 1952 of America's "imperfect democratic culture" and his observation that American workers "enjoy more bread and freedom than anywhere in the world," Wald snorts, "as if this generalization might give comfort to large segments of the American working class who were excluded from the fruits of postwar prosperity, or the workers of dependent nations whose economic stagnation was part of the price of the U.S. domestic achievement" (p. 293). But was it not "rapacious American capitalism" that provided the indispensable aid—to winners and losers alike—to rebuild after the Second World War, following Nazi destruction and Stalinist plundering? If the accomplishments of the anti-Stalinist left in literature and philosophy command respect, their politics, however, strongly hint that their political proficiency stood a few rungs beneath that of a Tammany district captain. Wald follows the anti-Stalinist political grouping, first in the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners, then the "trial" in Mexico of Leon Trotsky and, finally, in the Socialist Workers party of James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman. This party never had more than two thousand members and its factions constantly quarreled and split. Committed to ideological correctness rather than running in elections, they (Cannonites and Shachtmanites of the Socialist Workers party) had almost nothing to show for their efforts. The Second World War "posed enormous complications for traditional Marxist

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analyses," Wald candidly admits (p. 196). The war was "immensely popular" and, clearly, "either one fought fascism in the concrete—that is, militarily—or one did not." Because it was not "a fundamentally interimperialist war," as the First World War had indeed been in the Marxist analysis, the way easily opened to "national unity" with capitalist regimes (p. 195). Most of the Trotskyites supported the war with mental reservations. Their support led them to embrace the Cold War against the Stalinist totalitarian empire and, as in the case of Hook, to find previously unrecognized virtues in the American system. Here Wald arrives at the least pleasant part of his book. He might agree with this characterization, although for different reasons. For him, the post-Second World War years mark "The Great Retreat," in which such subjects as "The Psychology of Apostasy," "The Iron Cage of Orthodoxy" and "The Cul-de-Sac of Social Democracy" must be considered in detail. I, for my part, find his methods and moralizing grating and gratuitous. Actually, there is Wald the historian who takes seriously the reasons for deradicalization after the Second World War and there is Wald who can include in his portrait of Irving Howe observations like, "Howe's problem [is that] he invariably ends up making the social order more tolerable and open to change than it is. . . .A higher form of democracy, however, is obtainable only through a democratically organized structural transformation" (pp. 333-334). Wald says hardly anything about the New Left, probably because it was not ideologically serious. Nor, it may be mentioned, does he take any note of the meaning of New York City for his actors, although the book is about The New York Intellectuals. One finishes this book with mixed sensations. There can only be respect for a great deal of hard work and good writing. One rarely encounters a book with so vast a list of acknowledgements for interviews and correspondence, some of it with men who receive the back of the author's hand in the text. But there is also a decided sense of irritation as Wald's own commitments are regularly paraded and everyone passes before the author in moral and political judgment. Charity is missing here, and there should be much of it. Gifted young men entered and participated in and departed from the ranks of the radical left, passing on to other political and career commitments. Unlike the Communists, they did not defile the political scene nor did they bend the knee to ideological dictates. Alan Wald has no doubt known promising students with creative prospects before them in the arts and sciences. Since he was born in 1946, he may not yet have met these students fifteen or so years afterwards, thicker in the waist and well established in advertising or law or public relations, with the fires of youth burning only in an extramarital affair or two. I wonder whether his young anti-Stalinist left intellectuals do not deserve deeper understanding as a generation. Just possibly, they also read the signs of the 1940s and 1950s more truly than Professor Alan M. Wald reads them with his ideologically determined hindsight. Unlike Wald, Alexander Bloom is not insistent on reading these intellectuals as renegade revolutionists. To read his book is, therefore, to drop a good many degrees in ideological temperature, even though Prodigal Sons takes up most of the people

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Wald considers during the same span of time. Where Wald is fervently partisan, Bloom appears mildly sympathetic although uncommitted to any of the ideologies he discusses. Virtually disregarding their political parties, his emphasis is on the New York intellectuals as young Jews of East European immigrant parentage, mostly educated at City College of New York, with a somewhat more affluent group graduating from Columbia. Not all of them were Jews: Edmund Wilson, F. W. Dupee and Dwight Macdonald were important non-Jewish figures. In Bloom's view, however, Jewishness is the central fact about the New York intellectuals, and he shows their uneasiness about being Jews. Bloom divides his subjects by generation. Sidney Hook, Elliot E. Cohen, and Lionel Trilling—all born around the turn of the century—typify the first generation; Daniel Bell and Alfred Kazin, ten to fifteen years younger, the second generation. Bloom presents a third generation, with Norman Podhoretz, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer and Irving Kristol as its representative figures. Obviously, three generations within thirty years refers not to human fertility, but to age cohorts during a period of hectic social and ideological development. Bloom observes his generations shifting and regrouping, where Wald conducts them to a climax of revolutionary fervor during the late 1930s and then wrathfully sees them quit the camp. The Jewishness of the New York intellectuals, dismissively commented on by Wald, is the focus of Bloom's history. Thus Alfred Kazin, probably the most forthrightly Jewish person in the coterie, is hardly mentioned by Wald but is conspicuous in Bloom's work. The author of Prodigal Sons finds a double-edged relationship between Jewish immigrant parents and these sons who recognize Jewish sources in their intellectuality and their manner of thought and expression but who were also determined to keep apart from the Jewish community. Rarely would they openly discuss any Jewish subject in one of their journals, above all not in Partisan Review. Its editors, Philip Rahv and William Phillips, both Jews, were as diffident on this matter as their contributors. The outcome of the Second World War saw many of the intellectuals not only endorsing the Cold War but also endeavoring to make something more substantial of their identity as Jews. Some took an interest in Buber and Hasidism and Yiddish; a few even met regularly to grapple with Maimonides' Mishneh Torah. Unmentioned by Bloom, Jacob Taubes enjoyed a brief vogue among them as a teacher; neither does Bloom refer to Wilson's extended Hebrew studies, from which emerged some brilliant and suggestive writings. With admirable delicacy, Bloom discerns the gradual impact of the Holocaust on the New York Jewish intellectuals; the founding of Israel, however, seems to have meant little to them. This gradual and partial reorientation paved the way for them to participate conspicuously in the new Commentary, which also brought back to prominence Elliot E. Cohen as its editor. An inordinate amount of attention is devoted to the office politics of Commentary, which culminated in Norman Podhoretz's ascendancy from 1960 or so. Happily, the quieter existence of the social democratic Dissent does not pass unnoticed. Self-awareness as Jews and willingness to speak as Jews reflect the book's title: the prodigal intellectual sons returned home or began to take that road. After 1970 there is little social or ideological cohesiveness, and less common discourse among the intellectual veterans of the 1930s. They succeeded in the great

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world, becoming professors at the finest universities, consultants to well-funded projects and welcome contributors to the leading magazines. Some aged and others withdrew to private spheres of interest. Many refused to follow left-wing political fashions and were accordingly put down as neoconservatives, and some became real conservatives. The time came to cultivate the myths of the 1930s and 1940s. It is astonishing that neither Wald nor Bloom take any note of Daniel Bell's analysis of the social background of thirty-eight New York Jewish intellectuals. Bell included what he calls their "Gentile Cousins," "Magazines," "European Relatives" and "Influentials—at a distance." ("The 'Intelligentsia' in American Society," in Daniel Bell (ed.), Sociological journeys: Essays 1960-1980 (London: 1980), 119– 137.) Fortunately, history is also being written, and Bloom's Prodigal Sons, for all its undue length, is one of the finer specimens. LLOYD P. GARTNER Tel-Aviv University

Views of Israeli Politics: Political Science or Political Advocacy? Daniel J. Elazar, Israel: Building a New Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. xi + 286 pp. Howard R. Penniman and Daniel J. Elazar (eds.), Israel at the Polls, 1981: A Study of the Knesset Elections. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. xiii + 280 pp. Daniel Shimshoni, Israeli Democracy: The Middle of the Journey. New York: The Free Press/London: Collier Macmillan, 1982. xvi + 543 pp. Russell A. Stone, Social Change in Israel: Attitudes and Events 1967–1979. New York: Praeger, 1982. xvi + 336 pp. Michael Wolffsohn, Politik in Israel. Opladen, W. Ger.: Leske Verlag+Budrich, 1983. 776 pp. Modern Israel in general and Israeli politics in particular have rarely, if ever, been discussed with equanimity. One is either for or against all or part of it—but in each case passionately so. As a consequence academic discourse has been seriously inhibited. This, in turn, has resulted in a dearth of such writing in recent years when compared with that on many other new societies, and this despite (or perhaps because of) the great interest in Israel as well as the genuine concern of many for its welfare. One of the less important results of this situation has been that in the prevailing political science literature, Israel is usually, though not always, omitted from comparative analyses. Moreover, when Israel is mentioned, it is usually as a "most baffling case" or "a case by itself" (G. Sartori). This sui generis disclaimer has for a long time been common to many Israeli and foreign students of Israeli politics and, surprisingly, remains so even today. But this questionable attitude, when carried to extremes, serves no legitimate scholarly purpose. Of course Israel has its own, different and even peculiar characteristics, but no more so than any other country. Israel can and should be studied and judged in comparison with other contemporary democracies, so that both the common features—which to my view are dominant—and its uniqueness can be analyzed and evaluated. Inevitably, some will focus on Israel's conformity to accepted norms in these political systems, whereas others will be attracted by its quite evident peculiarities. Some will use available analytical research frameworks and concepts, thereby contributing to the comparative endeavor; others will reject their applicability or feasibility because of the uniqueness of the Israeli case.

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The books under review here belong to the first group, although some contain a clear sense of the second argument as well. Together, they create a kaleidoscopic view of present-day Israel. Originally, it took almost a quarter of a century before political scientists came up with a generally accepted model of the Israeli political system that went beyond the conceptually straightforward constitutional aspects of its government setup. At the core of this new model was the dominant party system, all variants of which basically foreclosed any realistic expectations of a change in the system or even of the dominant party. But by the time this model had reached its ascendancy, in the mid-1970s, the system came to a rather abrupt end in the 1977 electoral upset. Not only did a different model need to be devised in its stead but the roots of this unexpected upheaval had to be explored as well. These were found, by some, in the effects of the 1967 war, with its profound impact on the political outlook of many Israelis and on the political culture of the country, as well as in the effects of the 1973 war, which had shaken Israel's self-confidence and considerably detracted from the exhilaration of 1967. Others saw the 1977 election results as the culmination of the steady growth of the Sephardi-Oriental sector in the Israeli electorate and the consistent increase in its vote for the Likud. Indeed, this relatively new feature in Israeli voting behavior, which many observers currently see as a fixed parameter, serves as the single most significant explanatory factor of contemporary electoral behavior, to the almost complete exclusion of other factors (the religious vote apart). From a systemic point of view, what has happened since 1977 has been the replacement of the relative political stability provided by the dominant party system, with all its vicissitudes, by the uncertainty and instability of what has become an equipoised two-party or, more precisely, a two-camp system. That the Israeli political leadership chose after 1984 to circumvent the electoral and parliamentary consequences of this basically classical adversary system by way of a government of national unity may be an indication that the leaders have not yet become reconciled to its novelty. The mechanics of this government, the parity in the cabinet and the contractual mid-term rotation in the prime ministership may yet come to constitute Israel's claim to fame for parliamentary innovation and ingenuity. They have already been adduced as further proof of Israel's non-comparability (although I, for one, would argue to the contrary). This novel government constellation is too recent to be included in Michael Wolffsohn's truly monumental book. But just about everything else relating to Israel's political system before 1984 is to be found within its encyclopedic scope, which to the best of my knowledge is unmatched as well in studies of the politics of other countries. The more the pity, therefore, that this book was published in German and that it seems unlikely to achieve wider circulation in English, or in Hebrew for that matter, because of its awesome size. The value of the book, however, does not lie in its length, but rather in the combination of meticulous and exhaustive attention to fact, leaving out no name and no event, and the broad and flexible framework of analysis that finds a place for every detail. A comprehensive and comprehensible view of Israeli politics is thus presented, beginning with the pre-indepcndence period of British rule, during which the foundations for the Israeli party system were laid.

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Notwithstanding the book's very general title, its focus is parties and party politics, so that other aspects such as constitutional law and institutional structure are discussed from the party perspective. Similarly, policy issues and items on the public agenda are discussed at length and with a mastery of detail, but always in connection with party positions. The final part of the book, dealing specifically with the government, the Knesset and the presidency, provides less insights than the other sections and by comparison seems somewhat cursory. Altogether I know of no comparable work with such comprehensive and systematic analyses and typologies of the party system. The almost exhaustive presentation of the parties in terms of their ideologies and the development of their approaches on major issues is even surpassed by the attention paid to both structural elements— party size, internal party democracy, factionalism, types of leadership—and to the popular support dimension: who voted for whom—and why. However, here the book merely reproduces empirical data gathered by others and does not introduce new insights. Rather, the author summarizes the conventional wisdom about the 1977 elections, which he calls the "orientalization" of Israeli politics and, with unjustified grandiloquence, refers to this as the "second founding" of Israel. Although he sometimes overdoes the facts and figures so that one begins to lose sight of the forest for the trees, Wolffsohn provides us with much more in terms of analysis, interspersed throughout with comparative perspectives from the social sciences literature. He theorizes extensively at many levels. Probably his most sophisticated contributions to our understanding of Israeli politics are his chapters on the party system and on consociationalism (called here, in line with German practice, "concordance democracy"). He shows in great detail the subtle and quite unique pre-1977 dominant-party system, with its elements of consociationalism, and he depicts how with the demise of that system after 1977, the consensual ethic has likewise diminished. This analysis is pursued not only from an over-arching point of view but is spelled out in great detail with respect to six facets of public life—including the judicial system, the army and the state bureaucracy—that have been fully removed from sectoral control and with seven facets (e.g., education, the economy, the media, religious institutions) for which this is not the case. Wolffsohn could hardly have foreseen the deepening breakdown of consociationalism in Israeli politics—greatly accelerated by the Lebanese War—or an institutional arrangement—such as the government of national unity, which is usually considered to be the major consociational mechanism—that has actually further contributed to this process. In a lengthy and extremely enlightening section, Wolffsohn develops his generational theory, which demonstrates the vast ideological and attitudinal differences between the founding fathers and the present party leaders, especially their widely divergent policy orientations. Perhaps the most detailed and innovative chapter in this section deals with inter-generational changes among Israel's Arab population and its major sub-groups—the Druse, the Christians and the bedouin. As is usual in this work, this chapter is packed with a spectacular range of information on demographic, social, cultural and political matters, with a plethora of varied statistical data, tables and charts. Here, as elsewhere, more structure and a clearer sense of direction would have made reading easier. Missing from this chapter is a discussion of the impact on Israeli Arabs of Israel's rule over the West Bank. On the other

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hand, there is a brief and interesting comparison between Israeli Arabs and what the author calls their historical counterpart, namely, the European proletariat of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; yet, there is nothing about the more obvious comparison between the West Bank Arabs and the European Gastarbeiter. A further weakness in this chapter, which recurs in others, is demonstrated in the short section dealing with government policy toward the Arab minority, which is much too casual in its presentation and is based exclusively on a random selection of local and foreign newspaper items. Finally, a word should be said about the profuse documentation of this book, which is almost breathtaking. There are almost seven hundred items in the list of works cited, and this does not include widespread quotations from daily newspapers. There are also over 125 sophisticated tables, charts, figures and diagrams compiled by the author on the basis of other sources. There can hardly be a greater dissimilarity than that between Wolffsohn's book and Daniel Shimshoni's Israeli Democracy. Shimshoni's book, although published a few years ago (1982), still seems to this reader to be the best overall guide to Israeli politics in the widest sense. It combines serious research with personal experience and, without making pretentious scholarly claims, turns out to be a very learned, objective presentation based on a perceptive and judicious analysis. Shimshoni, who has had a varied career in the upper echelons of Israel's military forces and civil service, is at his best when dealing with those government branches in which he has been personally involved: the army, science policy and the social welfare system, especially Project Renewal. Clearly his occupational experience has heightened his sensitivities and increased his empathy with his subject matter. The book is in no way autobiographic or apologetic; instead, one has the feeling of getting inside information, with the proper mix of understanding and criticism. Unlike Wolffsohn, who focused his entire magnum opus on the political parties, Shimshoni unfortunately ignores them almost completely. It is as if he made it one of the aims of his book to combat the widely accepted view (to which I personally have become less and less committed) that Israel is the Parteienstaat par excellence. Particularly apposite is the long and very informative chapter on the political economy: first, because this topic is rarely discussed in books of this kind; second, because of its wide range of topics, such as government economic policy, labor relations as well as the economic influence on politics and policies. The book possibly suffers from a slight imbalance of overemphasizing consensus and solidarity and minimizing conflict and, in spite of a basic open-minded and open-hearted approach, from frequent shifts between optimism and pessimism. In this, it seems to me, the author is quite representative of Israel's intelligentsia. Social Change in Israel by Russell A. Stone is an innovative and successful attempt to chart the impact of major events and occurrences on Israeli public opinion over the twelve-year period from the aftermath of the Six Day War to the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty in mid-1979. Datawise the book, written in collaboration with the late Louis Guttman and Shlomit Levy, is based on the unique Continuing Survey of Social Problem Indicators conducted by the Israeli Institute of Applied Social Research—of which Guttman was scientific director. As a result, the book is methodically rather sophisticated, including all the pertinent scientific apparatus, such as scales, mapping sentences and reliable polling.


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Documented in abundant detail and painstakingly categorized is the book's finding that Israeli public opinion—subsuming moods, worries, attitudes—is closely related to all political, social and economic events, but especially to security and international events impinging on Israel's existence. Israelis, so the data show clearly and consistently, feel very strong involvement in most daily public happenings, primarily because of the obvious importance of such events for everyone's personal life as well as for the collectivity. Still, like everybody else, Israelis differentiate quite clearly between their conceptions of, and attitudes to, their own well-being and that of the public at large. The book deals at length with these differentiations, but the main focus is on security and the economy. The major finding is that over the years the Israelis' self-assessment of their own personal wellbeing was higher and steadier than their assessment of communal well-being. Moreover, attitudes to security were more stable than those relating to the economy. It would be extremely interesting to know the extent to which the Lebanese War, the security situation on the West Bank and elsewhere and the government's successful anti-inflationary measures have affected the moods and perceptions of the public since this book was written. The Israelis, then, turn out to be an inordinately political public, but one incapable of distinguishing politics in its broadest sense from party politics. This conclusion by itself is not very novel. What is of greater interest is the fact that although in the past actual events were of minor significance in the voting decision when compared with long-established party images, recently the reverse seems to have become the case. Party loyalty is on the decline and a growing percentage of voters reacts to immediate past occurrences. It remains to be seen how permanent a feature of Israel's political culture this becomes. Daniel Elazar's Israel: Building a New Society, like other works of this genre, has its own formula for comprehending the ethos, political culture and modus operand! of Israeli society. It is presented with great vigor and display of erudition as well as a remarkable capacity to marshal the evidence, although parts of the book seem to consist of speculative observations. Elazar is one of those scholars who stress Israel's uniqueness—making this claim in the very first sentence of his book—yet, at the same time, he uses a wide range of social science terminology and methodology to argue his case. He seeks to demonstrate the unique combination of ancient cultural traits with modernity and, in addition, to explain the rather abrupt changes in Israel of the second generation (of the 1970s and later) at least partly in terms of a backlash against what he conceives to be Western incongruities in an Oriental ambience. In this connection, the discussion of Israel's political culture is vital and stimulating, but at least partly erroneous. Most observers would agree that so far no integrated political culture has emerged, although I seriously doubt whether it is less integrated than that in most other modern pluralistic democracies. But whatever one's view on this, it is obvious that even a crystallized political culture changes over time. What does seem at this moment to be an open question is not whether, but in which direction, Israeli political culture will turn. On this crucial question, Elazar's premises seem to me to be both incorrect and, putting it frankly, quite disturbing. In dealing with the Israeli case, Elazar adopts a triple classification of political

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cultures, namely subject, statist and Jewish—the last simply equated with civic— all of which were introduced into the country by the returning Jews. In contrast to the prevailing view in Israel, he claims that the subject political culture is found equally among Ashkenazi and Sephardi-Oriental Jews, not only among the latter, which is the result of neither group having undergone modernization before coming to Israel. (More about this later.) The statist political culture is identified with the European tradition of statehood; and this, like most things European or Continental, is highly disdained by the author. Finally, Elazar holds that a "civic and republican" Jewish political culture prevailed in the historical Diaspora. Although even Ben-Gurion is enlisted to prove this contention, I remain unconvinced. If it is at all permissible to speak of Jewish political culture during the two millennia of life in the Diaspora, then at the very least, quite a number of such cultures—including contradictory ones—may be identified. One cannot simply label them all "civic" in any accepted sense of that term. There are other terminological oddities in the book, perhaps best ignored, but some are quite eccentric, whereas others are used as codes. Thus, "covenant" and "covenantal," which seem to have a special magic for the author, are used insouciantly to mean just about any agreement or mutual understanding; federalism and federal are employed in the sense of pluralism and pluralistic, having shed their specific constitutional connotation. At times covenant and federal are actually treated as synonyms! The disagreeable statist political culture is asserted to have been the conception of the state that lay behind the "Bolshevik Revolution" inspired and initiated by the Third Aliyah. Elazar is not the first to use this label pejoratively to describe the dominant ethos of the Jewish community in Palestine in the 1920s. There certainly were some people during that period who were imbued with a Bolshevik spirit, and they possibly included Ben-Gurion for a time. But to characterize the whole period as "Bolshevik" is fallacious. What was Bolshevik about the Knesset Israel, the Jewish self-governing body, or even the Histadrut (the trade union federation of which Ben-Gurion was then secretary-general)? And by what stretch of the imagination can the Yishuv of the subsequent Fourth Aliyah, and ever since then, be called Bolshevik? One of the major theses of the book is the gradual transformation of Israeli society from an ideological to a territorial democracy. Not only are these terms not antonyms, they actually operate on two quite distinct axes or levels of discourse. Both may, and do, apply simultaneously, as the author himself points out, to one society. "Territorial," however, becomes something akin to a neo-plasm in Elazar's hands. At times it is used merely to indicate that the Jews wanted a place of their own. At others, this term refers to central-local government relations—specifically to a potent decentralizing tendency, which I fail to detect. But mostly this term is meant to convey the sense of the de-ideologization of Israeli politics, which (irrespective of whether this is a valid judgment or not) appears to be least apt in this connection. The most persistent theme of this book, however, is a forceful revision of what its author decries as distorted official Zionist historiography and its myths concerning


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the role of the Sephardim (including Oriental Jews) in the construction of the Jewish state and on the contemporary scene. There is, of course, always room for a revisionary, anti-establishment historiography. But in this case, there is an appalling over-reaction, as a result of which many new distortions—or shall we say myths—have crept in. On reading the chapter "Ashkenazim and Sephardim," one cannot avoid feeling that the author of this tirade is engaged in a personal crusade, almost a vendetta, to redress the wrongs done to the Sephardim by Israeli society and its Ashkenazi captains. Now, Elazar admits that some of the wrongs committed against the Sephardim have been unwitting and, in a few cases, even unwilling; but this fact is not allowed to mitigate the charges he levels of deliberate material and spiritual victimization of Sephardim in Israel! The ancient Hebrew adage that individuals ought not to be held accountable for their reactions in their hour of grief is appropriate here; in any case, everyone is entitled to an opinion as long as this is clearly presented as such. Nevertheless, a few remarks seem called for. The author's assertion that the founders of modern Israel were principally Sephardim is historically incorrect and on the same level of accuracy as the statements by former Prime Minister Begin that credit Ze'ev Jabotinsky with being the founder of the State of Israel. Even if this were true, in the context of this book such a pathetic claim adds up to no more than Esau's lament over his lost birthright. The author is convinced that what Israelis want and Israel needs, now that Ashkenazi (or the Labour or the Bolshevik) version of revolutionary Zionism-cumsecularized Judaism has run its course—reaching exhaustion and inevitable dereliction—is Sephardi Zionism. This, the genuine Zionism of redemption, seeks not to overturn tradition but to continue it; and in Sephardi Zionism, religious and political aspirations are harmoniously merged. Much could be said on this score, but a few observations must suffice. First, there has always been more than one kind of Ashkenazi Zionism, and not all kinds were Bolshevik. Second, judging by ancient and contemporary experience elsewhere of the politicization of religion, on the one hand, and by the intrusion of ostensible and even genuine religious elements into Israeli politics, on the other hand, I am not convinced that the merger of religion and politics is such a good idea. In any event, traditional and modern redemptive trains of thought are no more Sephardi than Ashkenazi, and in my humble opinion, had strictly traditional redemptionism prevailed without the infusion of a European "revolutionary" elan, redemption would have remained in the prayerbook—and no modern, democratic and liberal (yes, liberal) polity would have been created. This connects with the view—actually a myth of considerable respectability but minor factual validity—that the Sephardi attitude toward religion is open and tolerant, whereas the Ashkenazi attitude tends to be ideological and uncompromising. To the extent that Sephardim belie their image in practice, this is attributed by Elazar to their adaptation to their changed, Ashkenazi-dominated surroundings. But, he claims, this deviation lasted only "until they learned to function in a moderate way, in a democratic society," that is to say, returned to their true selves. One wonders what the author has to say about Shas, the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party that emerged on the political scene in 1984 and that is mentioned in his book only in passing. Although this party, and especially its political leader, exude

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openness and civility, its intransigent Orthodoxy has surprised all observers because of the widespread acceptance of the above-mentioned myth. No doubt, before long somebody will attribute the fundamentalist features of this party's public performance to acquired Ashkenazi traits, whereas their charming manners and social graces will be chalked up to Sephardi traditions! It is one thing to claim an overall moderation for Sephardim and a persistent synthesis of religion and political impulses as part of their integral Jewishness, all of which are at least debatable assertions; but it is another to make such statements as "In general, Israeli society has become more polite and refined as the Sephardim have become influential" and to "forecast a society that would be less abrasive, but no less keen, as it loses its Eastern European mannerisms . . . and replaces them with the Mediterranean ways of the Sephardim." Would that this were so. Do all Sephardim come from Spain or Italy or Greece, making their cuisine "light and sophisticated" and so evidently superior to the "plain heaviness" of Ashkenazi food, which—to add insult to bad taste—is "often erroneously termed 'Jewish cooking' "? One wonders whether all Sephardim (the term "Orientals" is dismissed as negatively loaded) draw their "classical Sephardi music" from late medieval Spanish influences, making it so much closer than the Russian-inspired music of the Ashkenazim to the music of Bach, Haydn and Mozart(!)? And what is one to make of a parenthetical aside in which the Zionist activity of Theodor Herzl and Max Nordau is actually attributed to their self-affirmed Sephardic ancestry? One would have thought that their conceptions of Zionism, which had mighty little use for Jewish tradition, were the very obverse of what the author calls Sephardi Zionism. But it is the present-day political implications of such sentiments that reveal the book's true colors. Thus, at one point a double myth is invoked: first, by insinuating more or less that Sephardi culture is still considered inferior in Israel; then, by claiming that this "inferior Sephardi culture" gained power in 1977. This was a major stage in what is called in this book, ' 'the present struggle between Sephardim and Ashkenazim over political power," as if this is what Israeli politics is currently all about. Indeed, within a generation or so, the author claims, it will be all over, presumably through a total victory of the Sephardim and their (genuine) type of Zionism. The party facet of this victory is the anticipated era of Likud rule; indeed, there will be a dominant party system all over again, only this time with the former perennial opposition in power. As the Sephardi population is growing faster than the Ashkenazi one (so the argument runs) and as over 70 percent of the Sephardim vote for the Likud—and cannot do otherwise—because "Labour is so demonstratively anti-Sephardi," Labour by this logic must go on "to lose an additional 1 percent of the electorate from election to election, with a corresponding Likud gain," that is a 2 percent shift (two or three Knesset seats) in the latter's favor every four years. It matters not that the 1981 elections contradicted this prophecy. Labour's gains in that election are dismissed as illusory and, although it was published in 1986, the book makes no reference to the 1984 elections. Actually, in 1984 Labour indeed lost 1.7 percent of the vote, but the Likud lost three times as much (5.2 percent). Because this is not the place to delve into the intricacies of Israeli voting behavior


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and voter realignments, suffice it to say that there certainly are contradictory tendencies at work among the Ashkenazim and among the Sephardim when viewed as two voting groups, which is not to say that this is the only way. in which Israeli voters are and must be viewed. These matters have all been meticulously researched and analyzed by other scholars, and it is a pity that none of this literature is so much as referred to in this connection. Elazar has written an extremely idiosyncratic book that combines erudition with chagrin and pungent apologetics. Unfortunately, the last two characteristics too often overwhelm the first. Israel at the Polls, 1981, edited by Howard Penniman and Daniel Elazar for the American Enterprise Institute, was published in that Institute's At the Polls series, the second such book on Israel (following that covering the 1977 elections). By the time this volume was published in 1986, the 1984 elections had taken place, and a book on that election has already appeared, in the series edited by Asher Arian. As a result, some of the chapters read like yesterday's newspaper, containing important information for future reference and valid analyses, but quite useless for an interpretation of events. One striking example of this is the speculation that Tami, the breakaway party that drew Moroccan votes from the National Religious Party and won three seats in 1981, might become the ' 'Jewish democratic'' force in alignment with the NRP. In 1984 Tami barely won one seat; by 1986, when the book was published, it had disappeared altogether from the scene. But to have foreseen for it a future as a Jewish democratic force even at the height of its electoral success is rather odd. No less odd is the assertion, in the same chapter, that the Likud— especially Menachem Begin and David Levy—together with the NRP young guard, exemplify such a Jewish-democratic synthesis. The last chapter in the book, which deals with Begin's second term of office, from the 1981 elections until his resignation in 1983, might have served as a useful summary of the politics and personalities of these years. In retrospect, it is most disappointing, because it does not really deal with the two overwhelming policy issues of that time, the deepening economic crisis and runaway inflation and the Lebanese War. The chapter is also totally oblivious to Begin's failure as head of government, which by now has been amply documented elsewhere. And the explicit suggestion that the Sephardi cabinet members, qua Sephardim, brought about the judicial inquiry into the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, seems to be a complete misreading of the known facts. Altogether there are ten chapters in the book, most of which provide reliable, informative and useful summaries, but they are not very innovative. Three chapters deal competently with the main contesting parties: the Labour Alignment, written by Efraim Torgovnik; the Likud, written by Han Greilsammer; and the Religious parties, written by Shmuel Sandier. Abraham Brichta reports on the selection of candidates and Bernard Reich on foreign policy issues in the elections. Asher Arian deals in a remarkably dispassionate manner with a very passionately fought and unsavory campaign. He covers succinctly the campaign strategies of the two major contestants, Labour and the Likud, assisted by interesting public opinion data, which among many other things clearly indicate the general tendency toward the right in Israeli politics; and he sketches the images of these two parties and the

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ideological dispositions of Israelis. Above all, he presents what, at the time of the 1981 elections and in their aftermath, seemed to be the final crystallization of ethnic polarization and its party political impact. The article carefully documents the then-accepted opinion of the almost deterministic adherence of the great masses of Sephardim/Orientals to the Likud camp. A novel theme in the book is that of the chapter on "Mutual Intervention in Domestic Politics: Israel and the United States" by Samuel Krislov. However, the chapter fails to live up to the promise of its title, because it does not probe systematically enough into its subject matter, but rambles over a lot of more or less irrelevant material. Judith Elizur's paper on the role of the media in 1981 is comprehensive, well researched and an original piece of work. For a better understanding of the political significance of the media, however, much research still remains to be done. Perhaps the major epistemological dilemma with which modern social sciences are constantly confronted, and which probably will never be resolved, is that of "scientism" versus advocacy. Even the most scholarly books about Israel have tended to suffer from an overdose of advocacy. The assortment of books reviewed here fully represents the range of scholarly options. Russell Stone's work is on all counts closest to the category of absolute political neutrality. But even Wolffsohn, with his careful adherence to strict scholarly impartiality—and possibly because of it—feels obliged to declare his interests and sympathies (incidentally, in and for Israel) in his preface. And in his concluding observations—after explicitly rejecting the legitimacy of giving advice or even of engaging in prognostication in a scholarly book—nevertheless, he proceeds to indicate very clearly in a ten-point list of issues confronting Israel what he would have said had he not been inhibited from doing so. Elazar, although adhering quite pedantically to the accepted rules of what have come to be called the soft sciences, does not even aspire to neutrality, feigned or otherwise. Most of his book aims at a revision of accepted (un)scholarly lore and myths and, at times, takes on the character of a plaidoyer. It may not be the worse for it from a purely literary point of view and it certainly makes no claim for full academic detachment, which may yet be its greatest virtue. EMANUEL GUTMANN The Hebrew University

Political Religion in Israel Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. x + 305 pp. Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Religion and Politics in Israel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. David Newman (ed.), The Impact of Gush Emunim: Politics and Settlement in the West Bank. London: Croom Helm, 1985. 276 pp. Something important seems to have happened to Israel's political culture, but nobody is quite sure what. Symptomatic of this sense of transformation are the results of an informal poll conducted by the popular tabloid Hadashot to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Six Day War, a watershed. Twenty-two diverse Israeli public figures were asked to name the person with the greatest impact on the country during the past two tumultuous decades. The winner (tied for first place with former Prime Minister Menachem Begin) was a rabbi: Moshe Levinger, a founder and leader of the Gush Etnunim religious/nationalist movement. Of the entire Labour camp, which had dominated the society and state all through the first half of its existence, only one leader—and a renegade at that, Moshe Dayan—was picked by anybody on the panel. The three books under review are all attempts to come to grips with one major component of the "new Israel": the ambiguous but apparently expanding role of religion in the self-proclaimed Jewish state. The issue is as important as it is elusive, for it concerns not just domestic affairs but also, thanks to Rabbi Levinger and his like, the most sensitive matters of foreign policy. The pundits, clearly, see a quantum leap in religious influence, at least of a certain kind; but how much has the Israeli in the street really changed in this respect? Here as elsewhere in political analysis, underlying demographic and attitudinal shifts, although rarely decisive, are intriguing. And because they are not well covered in any of the books reviewed, some brief observations about the changing "Jewishness" of Israel's Jewish population are in order. (Arabs—over one-third of the combined population in Israel proper or under Israeli rule today— are almost invisible in all three books and are excluded from this discussion). At. opposite poles of the religious/secular continuum, some contradictory longterm trends emerge. From 1962 to 1981, the number of Israeli Jews who said that they did not observe Jewish law at all rose slowly but steadily from 24 to 34 percent; whereas the proportion who said that they observed Jewish laws "to the letter" or "quite a bit" declined from 30 to 23 percent. In the past decade alone, to take a 305

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more conventional measure, the proportion of self-described Orthodox in Israel's Jewish population has also dropped slightly, to around 15 percent. At the same time, the intensity of religious observance and commitment among this Orthodox minority appears (though statistics are hard to come by) to have risen. If the haredim ("ultra-Orthodox") still number a mere 5 percent or so of the Jewish population, they have become more visible and vocal—and they exert a more powerful pull on organized religious life in the country.* Moreover, as of mid-1986, two-thirds of all Israeli Jews felt that Orthodox influence on the entire country's life was rising as well. On certain specific issues, that influence was widely resented. Two-thirds of Israeli Jews, for instance, want "more culture and entertainment ... on Friday nights," in spite of Orthodox prohibitions. The estrangement between secular and Orthodox has become especially acute in Jerusalem, where the numbers and strength of the latter community have been steadily rising. In March 1986, amid scattered incidents of vandalism by both sides, nearly half the Jews in the city said religious tensions were Israel's most pressing problem—far outdistancing not only violent crime but even the Arab-Israeli dispute. Yet, sustained outbursts of friction or violence are unusual. A major moderating factor is simply the presence—in between the Orthodox and secular extremes—of a large and remarkably stable middle ground, in terms both of personal practice and of public policy preference. Over the past twenty-five years, nearly half of Israeli Jews have said they observe Jewish law "somewhat." In a similar vein, about half have consistently agreed that "the government should see to it that public life is conducted in accordance with Jewish religious tradition." (The percentage saying "definitely not" has actually decreased, to about one-quarter.) An even split was also recorded in a 1986 poll about whether the perceived rise in Orthodox influence was desirable or undesirable. Perhaps most significant, fully half of all Israeli Jews believed that, when tensions arose, "both sides should give in to each other" in order to "maintain domestic harmony." That has, indeed, been the long-term pattern, with the policy pendulum swinging back and forth on the margins of an appropriately ill-defined status quo. All this points to a paradox: objectively there has been no real popular religious revival and continual but controlled tension between secular and Orthodox remains the norm; yet, there exists a widespread perception that religious influence is in the ascendant. To the extent that this perception is accurate, the change in Israel's religious environment must be primarily qualitative rather than quantitative in nature. Perhaps, as the three books under discussion collectively imply, the past twenty years have witnessed a partial convergence of Israeli political culture and Jewish Orthodoxy, with the former becoming more traditional and the latter more nationalist. Compared with demographic and attitudinal factors, the historical and ideological context of this issue is more familiar, so the briefest sketch will suffice here. Most of Israel's founders consciously rejected Orthodoxy along with other East European stereotypes—although, it might be noted, rarely with quite the virulence of some assimilationist or radical Jewish groups. The earthy valor of the halutz, not the *See the essay in this volume by Aviezer Ravitzky (Editor's note).

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studious piety of the yeshive-bokher, was the Zionist ideal. State building and, to a lesser extent, socialism replaced religion in the quest for community and purpose in life. But success bred cynicism, if not contempt; the new state's existence was taken for granted; socialism soon developed into a kind of impersonal bureaucratic corporatism, with scant appeal for the masses of traditionalist immigrants; pioneering pastoralism grew ever-more irrelevant in an overwhelmingly urban industrial and service economy, the more so as Arab laborers from the territories took over physically demanding jobs in agriculture and construction. One wonders whether, despite the quantitative indicators, the resulting ideological void is being filled by some kind of religious revival or by an even-more explosive mixture of religion and nationalism. One important dimension of this process, which might be labeled the "creeping traditionalization" of Israeli political culture, is usefully analyzed in Liebman and Don-Yehiya's book on Civil Religion in Israel. The book begins with a discussion of the subtle interaction between traditional Judaism and varieties of Israeli civil religion, that is, "the ceremonials, myths and creeds which legitimate the social order, unite the population, and mobilize the society's members in pursuit of its dominant political goals." Israel, the authors argue convincingly, "needs a civil religion rooted in the religious tradition but not synonymous with it." So a series of such civil religions has variously revived, reinterpreted, or rejected traditional Jewish values, symbols and even holidays in the search for a successful synthesis. The authors consider this series, in turn, with chapters on "Zionist Socialism," "Revisionist Zionism as a Civil Religion," "The Civil Religion." This periodization, like any abstraction, is a bit artificial, over-simplifying a more incremental process of change, but it provides a useful analytical framework nonetheless. The first such civil religion faced a challenge captured in one pithy observation. Its adherents, long the leaders of the Yishuv and then of the new Israeli state, "were too intimately associated with the religious tradition, too familiar with its broad outlines, yet also too estranged from its basic values to either ignore it or unconsciously transform it." Instead, many "Zionist-socialist values and symbols were deliberately contrasted to those of the tradition." After 1948 Ben-Gurion's response to the reality of statehood and the massive influx of non-indoctrinated immigrants was to manufacture a new civil religion: one that worshipped neither the traditional God of Israel nor the Utopian social ideals of labor Zionism, but rather the state itself. In the short run, this served to strengthen the prime minister's dominant Mapai (Labour) party, which was so widely identified with the new Israeli state. But in the longer run, "statism" diluted the specific content and emotional appeal of Israeli civil religion. This left a spiritual-ideological vacuum whose emptiness became apparent, ironically, only after Israel's crushing victory in the 1967 Six Day War. That victory did not, in my view, usher in the full-blown legitimacy or identity crisis that so many other commentators have claimed (with hardly a shred of evidence) to detect in the immediate aftermath of 1967. Such notions falsely project things backwards; they conveniently forget the "seven fat years" of complacency between the Six Day and the Yom Kippur wars; therefore, they distort both the sequence and significance of more recent shifts in Israeli political culture. Still, it

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does make some intuitive sense to suggest that public life began to lose some of its higher purpose precisely because of Israel's success twenty years ago. Once, the challenge sanctified by civil religion had been to create a sovereign Jewish society; then to gather in the exiles and provide them with protection and perhaps prosperity. What remained when all that could be taken for granted? And more poignantly, what remained to believe in when even the idol of military supremacy proved hollow on the Day of Atonement in 1973? The answer presumably would be provided by Israel's "new civil religion," which, the authors argue, is more attuned to traditional Judaism, to Diaspora Jewry and to the tragic dimension of Jewish history incarnated in the Holocaust. The newfound fascination with ancient motifs is demonstrated with examples from the press, political rhetoric and some aspects of popular culture. The mirror image of this uneven convergence of civil and traditional religions is reflected in increasingly positive Orthodox responses to Zionism. These are outlined in a separate chapter that combines a competent historical survey with a stimulating if sketchy look at recent trends in this direction. This tendency toward convergence, the book implies, found its natural political spokesman in Likud's Menachem Begin, who finally wrested an election from Labour a decade ago. Revisionist Zionism, the precursor of Herat and then the Likud, had professed greater sympathy for traditional Judaism ever since 1935, when Jabotinsky formally seceded from the mainstream Zionist movement. And Begin's own public pronouncements, the authors suggest, showed him to be a worthy disciple of his mentor in that respect. Now, all this may help to explain the relative ease with which the Likud and the religious parties have struck political bargains over the past decade. It may even help to explain the fusion between militant nationalism and religious Orthodoxy characteristic of Gush Emunim. But one must be wary of explanations that mix religion, even civil religion, with politics. After all, the religious parties worked well with Labour as long as it dominated Israel's governing coalition. Their 1977 switch to the Likud should be seen as simply the sound tactic of siding with a winner rather than as the realization of some long-dormant ideological affinity. Most of these parties, it might be noted, had no compunctions about rejoining the Labourled National Unity Government in late 1984. Moreover, if some (and only some) of the Orthodox have lately been converted to a hawkish, Revisionist line, the converse is hardly true: Israel's hawks, by and large, have not become more religious, at least not in any traditional sense. More important, the book's focus on traditional religious symbols actually obscures the critical, and decidedly untraditional, Biblical/nationalist/territorial component of Israel's new civil religion. There is hardly a page devoted to this vital issue, which seems to have been defined away as beyond the scope of discussion. At the same time, the authors succumb to an opposite but equally natural temptation: they inflate the importance of their own narrowly defined subject. This can have the unfortunate consequence of confusing cause and effect. Did the Likud really win, for example, because it was "the more authentic representative" of Israel's new, re-traditionalized civil religion? Or was it the other way around? Did not the Likud's electoral triumph actually come first, for different reasons, and help


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produce more official invocations of, and media attention to, religious matters? Indeed, voting analysis suggests that the Likud's electoral edge in 1977 and 1981 was based not on the new civil religion defined in this book, but rather on ethnicity, economics, personal charisma, popular hawkishness and "structural accidents" like the abrupt appearance and disappearance of the consciously untraditional Democratic Movement for Change as another competitor for disaffected Labour voters. Other, more basic questions arise. Do Israeli civil religions reflect temporary constellations of political forces or deeper and more enduring cultural patterns? How widely shared, potent or consciously held and applied are the underlying tenets of these shifting symbolic systems? The authors valiantly attempt to confront these issues, making occasional and commendable use of polling data and content analysis to buttress their interpretation. They also include a chapter, again focused very narrowly on shifts toward traditionalism, about Israeli "instruments of socialization": the media, the army, the schools and the comments of leading public figures—but not, significantly, the rival political parties or major extra-parliamentary movements. In the end, though, the authors rely primarily on impressionistic evidence from official statements and elite public discourse. And even at that level, their conclusion implies the Israeli elite does not always act in accordance with its self-professed civil religion. Thus, the entire discussion runs the risk of failing to distinguish between what is proclaimed by the government, the press and an assortment of more or less scholarly observers, on the one hand, and what is actually believed by the public or even the elite, on the other; in short, between rhetoric and reality. Dignifying with the label "civil religion" what may be mere lip service, much of which may actually be rejected by a fair portion of the population, can be quite misleading. If Israeli civil religions are, indeed, short-lived and as bereft of fervent conviction, mass appeal and elite influence as the authors ruefully concede, then what is the point of treating them as "independent variables" in political analysis? To their credit the authors are acutely aware of these questions—so much so that they cite a decline in the overall impact of civil religion as ' 'perhaps the single most important statement one can make about the changing nature of Israeli political culture.'' But even this bold assertion raises more questions than it answers. For one thing, it is unsupported by any hard evidence. On the other hand, if the authors' assertion is, indeed, true, then how meaningful is their own concept of a "new civil religion?" In sum, this book opens up a new line of inquiry into an intriguing and neglected topic. Its treatment of the early evolution of Israeli political cultures is often illuminating. Yet, the closer it comes to contemporary issues, the more elusive does its argument and even its very subject matter become. Perhaps that, too, is in its own way a reflection of Israeli reality. If there is one provocative inference that may be derived from all this, it is that religion in Israel, far from exercising an independent influence, has been reinterpreted to suit the political agenda of the day. A partial corrective to this overstated proposition is provided in the authors' second book under discussion, which examines the other side of the coin: the political role not of civil religion, but of religion per se. In this respect, the table of contents tor Religion and Politics in Israel looks

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promising indeed. Unfortunately, though, the book delivers a disappointingly vague and dated patchwork of reprinted-and-slightly-revised essays, with little serious discussion of the past decade's major trends. An important theme noted in the preface—that religion is a unifying as well as a divisive force in Israel—is not followed up very well in the text. As a result, the reviewer is reduced to piecemeal comments on individual chapters, which happily contain enough substance to make the exercise worthwhile. The authors are most familiar with their material and write about it with an appealing combination of objectivity laced with some admittedly subjective or speculative judgments. Unlike many other writers on Israel, they bring theoretical or comparative insights to bear and tackle sensitive issues without resorting to stereotypes. Once in a great while they veer too far in the opposite direction, making unsupported assertions that the perennial "Who is a Jew?" question is one "devoid of practical consequences'' or that the pivotal coalition role of the religious parties is "of relatively slight importance." But such lapses are exceptional in a generally knowledgeable, judicious and articulate presentation. The more serious sins are ones of omission, of which more later. This book, like its companion, opens with a thoughtful conceptual discussion: in this case, of the distinctions and connections between Israeli and Jewish identity, the private and public roles of religion and the overall Jewish condition in Israel and the United States. Only in Israel, the authors argue, has "the test of Judaism" become "what it has to say to the civil aspects of the society." The next chapter aptly describes the actual state of religious/secular relations in Israel as "neither separation . . . nor total integration." This mixture is widely accepted on the symbolic and institutional levels; but it is less than popular when it comes to specific religious legislation, precisely because concrete matters of "convenience" rather than "conscience" can be affected. Chapter 3 proceeds to outline some of the long-term patterns in this area, clarifying the swings in the supposedly sacrosanct status quo. In the years after independence, the authors note, Israel's secularists pointed to the continued expansion of areas under the control of the religious parties and sought to restore the balance. In later years, it was the religious side that generally felt aggrieved. Since 1977 and the Likud victory, the pendulum has again swung in the opposite direction.

This is the best three-sentence synopsis of a confusing welter of incidents that I have encountered; but the discussion is sadly deficient in illustrative detail. The following chapter switches subjects, to "the dilemma of reconciling traditional culture and political needs." Here we have a handy summary of the authors' thesis on Israeli civil religion. The larger Israeli religious issue, they argue convincingly, is not merely one of appeasing a small Orthodox minority. Rather, it is increasingly a question of satisfying the inchoate and ambivalent longings of the society's semi-secular silent majority, of filling a spiritual vacuum created by the gradual decline of labor Zionism and then of Ben-Gurion's statist ideology. In this quest, ironically, "the very condition of political freedom and the possibility of cultural pluralism make tradition an especially attractive source of symbols, because


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of the deference in which it is held." But the major such symbol cited here is the Holocaust, which is hardly "traditional." Moreover, if the overall argument is correct, another irony emerges. Just when Israel's civil religion is most amenable to traditional religion, popular tensions between secular and Orthodox have risen to levels not seen since the 1950s. Perhaps the latter, emboldened by their inroads, have provoked enough resentment to start the pendulum swinging back once more? Instead of pursuing such questions, the authors shift their focus in the next and most detailed chapter to a historical survey of Orthodox attitudes toward Zionism. Little of what was once a lively debate, they rightly observe, has survived the passage of time and events, yet one school that has not only survived but prospered is that of the rabbis Kook père and fils, offering a mystical messianic meaning to the secular state and even the physical land of Israel. In fact, it is "remarkable," according to the authors, that "no form of ideological synthesis other than that of Rav Kook is alive today." The implications (or, indeed, the accuracy) of this assertion fairly beg for examination; but none is forthcoming in this book. Chapter 6, on "Religious Leaders in the Political Arena," turns, instead, to an interesting examination of relations between the organs of state and the recognized rabbis, especially the chief rabbis. The authors give due consideration to the new if not entirely unprecedented situation, in the Jewish context, of sovereignty and centralization. In this context, the very existence of religious political parties paradoxically presupposes a significant secular sphere. But the "nonpartisan" official rabbis, they argue in a surprising yet sensible conclusion, have retained a large measure both of integrity and of autonomy within their limited purview. Unfortunately, the scope of this analysis is disappointingly narrow. There is almost nothing about hybrid rabbinical/political institutions like Agudat Israel's Council of Sages—let alone about more recent and more portentous developments along these lines like the Shas (Sephardi Torah Guardians) party. The one religious party that does get extended discussion is the venerable National Religious Party (NRP). Chapter 7 dwells on its ironic predicament of expanding ideological horizons and contracting electoral base, stressing the catalytic role of its Youth Faction. Also noted is a perceived improvement in the security of conventional Orthodox concerns, affording that community the twin "luxuries" of higher expectations and lower loyalty to established leaders. In fact, these factors are over-emphasized: the discussion alludes to, but does not adequately address, other issues like the growing ethnic, ultra-Orthodox and nationalist splits within the religious camp, which have constantly fragmented it at the NRP's expense. A bit more light on such matters is shed in the next (and last) chapter on "Religious Extremism in Israel." The discussion focuses on the retreat from "modern Orthodoxy" to a more insular and ritualistic "neo-traditionalism"—what Israelis call hashharah ("blackening," after the traditional East European ultraOrthodox garb). The NRP, according to the authors, had its own special reasons for continued moderation and cooperation. But Israeli Orthodoxy in general, like many other religious movements, harbored a latent drift toward extremism, one that manifested itself once there was a relaxation of external constraints like economic

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stringency or a felt need for broad communal solidarity. This account is both original and plausible, and it makes the timely point that Israeli religious extremism can turn inward as well as outward. Yet, it neglects the social pressures that have inspired and accompanied this Israeli version of fundamentalism. More important, it overlooks almost entirely the other, equally prevalent and more politically powerful brand of Israeli religious extremism—the one whose zeal is reserved not for tradition but for territory. Altogether, this reviewer, perhaps unfairly, expected a more concrete, coherent, and at least reasonably contemporary analysis from two such prolific experts on the Israeli religious scene. It is little short of remarkable, to use the authors' own word, that this book, too, fails to deal seriously with the significant (even if sensationalized) synthesis of militant Orthodoxy and nationalism that has transformed the terms of Israeli debate about the politics of religion. The glaring omission is redressed in the third book reviewed here, an anthology devoted to the organized spearhead of that synthesis, Gush Emunim. Like most collections, the whole of this one is less than the sum of its parts, which are uneven and rather incoherently strung together. Still, there are some valuable nuggets to be gathered along the way. The first five essays in the volume on The Impact of Gush Emunim, edited by David Newman, try to explain the roots of its success or, at least, its popular appeal. The editor's introduction points to the movement's very extremism as a source of strength. It could claim to champion Israeli "core values" with acts of "physical creativity," while the rest of society remained mired in a chronic "identity crisis." This is followed by a reprint of Ehud Sprinzak's well-known article arguing that the Gush is really only the tip of an "iceberg" floating in a supporting sea of "religious subculture." That support, he concludes, along with the confusion of Labour, the collusion of the Likud and the sheer inertia of the settlement process, have made the movement a well-nigh irresistible force. Myron Aronoff follows with a chapter on "The Institutionalisation and Cooptation of a Charismatic, Messianic, ReligiousPolitical Revitalization Movement." Despite this overblown title, he provides a thumbnail sketch of the movement's leadership, activities and relations with other political actors until 1984. The implication, presumably, is that one reason for its success was simply that it was better organized and more committed than any of its potential opponents. Now all these ideas are as valid as they are vague, leaving the reader groping. But when the other two contributors to this section get into specifics, they also get into trouble. Lilly Weissbrod starts out with an extreme and inaccurate portrayal of labor Zionism, of the legitimacy crisis that supposedly befell it as a result of the Six Day War and of the consequent "emerging dominance" of a New Zionism represented by Gush Emunim. For all that, her account is a useful reminder that the "old" and "new" Zionism are not all that different: both could appeal selectively and successfully to Jewish symbols in pursuit of a controversial and seemingly visionary goal. But if that is so, then why had one "replaced" the other? All we are offered is a tautology: That ideology which reinterpreted the national core values most comprehensively and provided the best basis for a renewed national identity, became dominant.


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Nowhere is it mentioned that Israeli Jews actually remain evenly divided over the desirability of West Bank territorial concessions and that a clear majority would be willing to freeze further settlement there in return for peace. And even among the half or so who would insist on keeping every inch of Eretz Israel, only a tiny fraction—about one in six—justify that position on religious (a la Gush Emunim) as opposed to more conventional strategic grounds. That does not stop David Schnall, who has written elsewhere on fringe movements in Israel, from claiming here that Gush Emunim has now moved into the mainstream. It has, he says, transcended its roots in the religious community, branching out to encompass society as a whole. But this account is similarly riddled with exaggeration. Gush Emunim, a relatively recent arrival, can hardly be credited with the longstanding phenomenon of the kipah serugah (the "knitted skullcap" associated with Orthodox Zionist activism). To be sure, it has "helped nudge the National Religious Party ... to the right"—but it has been some years (as the discussion in the preceding book demonstrates) since that party lost most of its popular and political importance. And if the Gush has "moved toward bridging the gap . . . between religious and secular," it has surely not gone very far in that direction. In fact, several contributors who look more carefully at this question conclude that some of the typical religious/secular tensions have simply been internalized into the ultra-nationalist camp. Mien Bauer's broad-brush analysis hints that the two flanks of that camp might well come to a parting of the ways. Two chapters analyzing survey data from Gush settlements—one covering that entire population, the other focused just on the small minority of American immigrant settlers— revealed an unexpectedly heterogeneous mix of religiously motivated idealists and pragmatists looking mainly for a better lifestyle. Naomi Nevo's detailed case study of one Gush settlement shows that, although religiosity is crucial to the community, it can also be a bone of contention even within that restricted group. Two other contributions present normative variations on this theme. Joseph Shilhav indulges in a polemic against Gush Emunim's "misinterpretation" of Jewish territorialism, whereas Gwyn Rowley constructs a mystifying model of the ' 'triadic relationship" among the Jewish God, people and land over three millennia. Both offerings are so idiosyncratic as to be inconsequential, but even so they demonstrate that the Gush has no monopoly on interpreting the covenant. Which brings us back to the original question: Why then has it been so successful? Or, perhaps more precisely, how successful has the Gush really been? Significantly, the three chapters that try to examine this question empirically all end up arguing, from different perspectives, that the scattered communal settlements sponsored by the Gush have actually been failures from a population and planning standpoint. At the same time, all three explicitly reserve judgment about the critical political dimension of the Gush Emunim settlement drive. The last word on this subject, fittingly enough, is by an Israeli Arab scholar. His concluding chapter gives a capsule history and a gloomy prognosis of intercommunal hostility resulting from Jewish settlement in and around the West Bank town of Hebron (Al-Khalil). Ultimately, it seems to me, the war for the West Bank will be won or lost not in the rarefied realm of religious disputation but on the ground—

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perhaps even, as the Palestinians sometimes say, in the bedroom. And if Gush Emunim is the tip of an Israeli iceberg, it is still only a drop in the Arab demographic sea. In the years since this volume was published, Israeli official ambivalence, economic austerity and internal divisions within the movement have all taken their toll on Gush Emunim. It paved the way to the West Bank for sixty thousand Jews—but also for what Meron Benvenisti has called the "suburbanization of settlement" into less religious or ideological and more physically compact communities. For the foreseeable future, the "new facts" created by these communities may well be "irreversible," as both the Gush and its critics claim. That is a tribute both to the movement's own singlemindedness and to the wider sympathies it can enlist. But it hardly represents a revolution in Israeli religious identity or practice, let alone in the entire political culture of the country. We have come full circle, back to our original question about how Israel has changed. This book, like the other two, betrays an assumption that some new "civil religion" has come to dominate the society. But it would be more nearly correct to say that the real change is that no single ideology is dominant any longer—not religious nationalism, not "traditionalism" or "neo-traditionalism," and not labor Zionism, to which half the Israeli public still weakly subscribes. Thus, each one of these books helps clarify the outline only of scattered pieces in the Israeli puzzle. And even all three volumes put together cannot explain just how (or, indeed, whether) those pieces join to form some quasi-religious contemporary political culture in the semi-Jewish state. DAVID POLLOCK Washington, D.C.

Ben-Gurion and the Palmah Two Points of View Anita Shapira, Mipiturei harama 'ad piruk hapalmah; sugyot bemaavak 'al hahanhagah habithonit, 1948 (The Army Controversy, 1948, Ben-Gurion's Struggle for Control). Tel-Aviv: Kibbutz Meuhad, 1985, 244 pp. Yoav Gelber, Lamah pirku et hapalmah? Hakoah hazevai bema'avar meyishuv lamedinah (Why Did They Disband the Palmah? The Defense Forces in Transition from Yishuv to State) Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem: Schocken, 1986. 302 pp.

The years 1947-48 saw a change in the status of the Yishuv from a non-sovereign community to a sovereign state. This transition was accompanied by what might be called "pangs of sovereignty" or, in sociological terms, the problems of institutional transition from community to state. Several problems had to be dealt with, the most important for the purposes of this review being, first, the need to impose political authority on the various groups and sectors of the population that had not been part of the "organized Yishuv" in pre-state days; and, second, the need to redefine the respective functions of the political center and certain particularist sectors within the established system that provided various specialized services for their members. The ensuing conflicts left their marks in various areas, but nowhere were they more evident than in the sphere of security. Most representative of the first type of problem were the serious difficulties involved in the integration of the Etzel (Irgun) and, to some extent, Lehi (the Stern group) into the Israel Defense Forces. It should be emphasized that the question of disbanding the Palmah command was not a problem of the first category, but rather of the second—to redefine the function of the Yishuv's political center once it had become the government of Israel. Two historians have recently published scholarly works on a question that has become a classic in Israel's political folklore: "Why was the Palmah disbanded?" Chronologically speaking, the first work to be published was Anita Shapira's book, The Army Controversy, 1948. It consists of two parts. The first is a brief monograph (65 pp.) that describes the course of events from Ben-Gurion's assumption of the security portfolio at the twenty-second Zionist Congress in 1946 up to the establishment of the Ministry of Defense and the disbanding of the Palmah in 1948. The second presents the entire protocol of the Ministerial Committee of Five, set up in July 1948 to examine Ben-Gurion's contention that a political rebellion was in progress in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) (the five ministers were Yitshak Gruen315

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baum, Moshe Shertok [Sharett], Moshe Shapira, Felix Rosenblueth [Pinhas Rosen] and Aharon Zisling). Gelber's book Why Did They Disband the Palmah? is more comprehensive, quantitatively speaking, though it covers more or less the same period, from the reorganization of the Haganah after the Second World War to the depoliticization of the army and the retirement of those of its commanders who were members of Mapam. Although both authors make extensive use of the principal relevant source—the protocols of the Committee of Five—Gelber uses it more selectively, apparently owing to his reservations as to its suitability as a central source for the period. The other archival sources cited by Shapira and Gelber are also largely identical, with the exception of the Mapam Archives, which figure only in Gelber's book and are apparently the basis for some of his conclusions that are at variance with Shapira's. Despite their different conclusions or interpretations, which will be outlined later, the two authors are not in conflict as to general principles, as evidenced by the books' subtitles. Shapira's subtitle is Ben-Gurion's Struggle for Control, whereas Gilber's is The Defense Forces in Transition from Yishuv to State. Both, then, are concerned with the controversy over the shaping of army-state relationships in a sovereign democratic state. In recent years, the sociology of civil-military relations has emerged as a full-fledged and lively sub-discipline. Several models have been developed for comparative analysis of different patterns of army-state or civilmilitary relationships. As both authors are historians rather than social scientists, they have justifiably chosen to present a classical historical rather than a sociological analysis. This is not to detract from the quality of the analysis, though Shapira and Gelber do not view the events with the same eye, in particular with regard to the implications of those events for the political and military system of the state at that time. According to Anita Shapira, there were several principal motives and arguments behind Ben-Gurion's fierce struggle, first for the disbanding of the Palmah command and later for the de facto disbanding of its brigades. First comes the formal military argument: "The Palmah command was gradually deprived of its functions, owing to the organization of the army on the basis of territorial commands, whose formation was dictated by the needs of the military fronts" (p. 58). Moreover, as the continued existence of the Palmah command after the Haganah period was due to inertia, authorized neither by the minister of defense nor by the general staff, it actually had no right to exist. A second argument was the need to subordinate the armed forces to a single, exclusive source of authority. In Ben-Gurion's view, any association of part of the army with a politically identified civilian body or movement was no less dangerous to the universality of the army than the separate existence of private armies. And there was a third argument, which even BenGurion himself did not voice in public, but which Shapira assumes was not foreign to his view: Mapam's pro-Soviet orientation. Ben-Gurion feared that "a military command inclining to views opposing his own would be party to political decisionmaking" (p. 59). Finally, Shapira holds, Ben-Gurion wished to mold the army "in his own image: an army lacking all tradition, a creation ex nihilo, as it were, cut off from alternative ideological, political and military sources of inspiration, loyal to the state of which Ben-Gurion was the concrete manifestation" (p. 59).

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Gelber, on the other hand, cites two main arguments that Ben-Gurion communicated to both colleagues and opponents—the military argument and the political one. According to the military argument, the circumstances that had developed "no longer enabled the Palmah to carry out its original tasks, and hence the fighting reserve and strike force would have to be created from other sources of manpower and command" (p. 106). Moreover, the Palmah's "separatism" and "arrogance" were an obstacle to coordination with other units, and even with the general staff. The political arguments are summed up in Ben-Gurion's contention that "an army, most of which is subordinate to the sole authority of the people, but some of which is subordinate, overtly or covertly, to some hidden authority" was inconceivable (p. 168); he was referring, of course, to Mapam. Ben-Gurion was concerned, therefore, with the lack of a single source of authority and a distorted command structure. On the face of it, then, the two historians seem to be in full agreement as to the motives that inspired Ben-Gurion, while the War of Independence was still going on, to enter into a conflict with his best officers and with the main opposition party—Mapam, which was essentially Mapai's sister-party and an integral part of the labor movement. In fact, however, Anita Shapira undertakes to refute at least some of BenGurion's arguments. Moreover, she condemns his timing of the crisis, which partly paralyzed the work of the general staff at one of the most difficult moments in Israel's military history. It is not implausible, in Shapira's view, that this situation exacted from the newly born state an unnecessary price, both literally and in human lives; and this is not to mention the strained relations that the controversy aroused, both within the high command and the political leadership as well as between the two groups. To support her argument, Shapira is obliged to contend with Ben-Gurion's interpretations of the events, no easy task, for, as she herself writes, "Not only was he the leader of the War of Independence, he also wrote its history" (p. 9). As a result, his version of the progress of the war has usually been accepted almost unchallenged. Shapira attacks that version on two fronts. First, she compares it with accounts rendered by his opponents, Israel Galili in particular. Second, she challenges Ben-Gurion's credibility, mainly by describing his motives in a light and from a viewpoint different from those which he himself wanted the public to accept. Thus, her first line of attack is concerned with the facts of the matter, whereas her second is essentially a discussion of Ben-Gurion's style of leadership. Shapira does not particularly approve of that style: she accuses Ben-Gurion of being "suspicious" and "aggressive" (pp. 20-21) and of having no scruples. She argues that although he was ostensibly "a champion of equality as against party priorities," in reality he was far from free of political partisanship (pp. 20, 34), nursed grudges against his opponents and never forgot their "sins." By contrast, Galili, according to Shapira, abhorred political and narrow sectional party intrigues; he was drawn into the conflict both because of Ben-Gurion's aggression and because of the extreme positions taken up by other members of Mapam, particularly Yizhak BenAharon. Her analysis of the complex relationship that developed between Ben-Gurion and Galili is based to a significant degree on psychological motives. The same is true of

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her assertion that the conflict was rooted in "Ben-Gurion's feeling of alienation toward a body in whose establishment he had had no part; he had not been responsible for any stage of its development, and it had grown to magnificent maturity in someone else's sphere of influence" (p. 58). In other words, Ben-Gurion had no affinity for the unique, distinctive elan of the Palmah, which was something of a "hybrid between a youth movement and an elite military unit" (p. 58). Shapira claims that Ben-Gurion, therefore, wished to create a military system in his own image. All this tells us something of the suspicion that Shapira entertains for BenGurion's projected reforms of the defense establishment, his style of operation and certainly his motives. On the other hand, it is not difficult to discern that she has more understanding (though not to the extent of full agreement) for Galili's positions and, to some degree, for Mapam's stand as a party. She extols the purity of Galili's motives, his basic loyalty to Ben-Gurion and his moderate style in the face of the latter's fierce onslaught against him, a man who had headed the Haganah de facto for a long time, especially in the critical months before the Declaration of Independence. In support of her severely critical view of Ben-Gurion's actions, and particularly of the timing he chose for his reforms, she points out that his colleagues in Mapai expressed their reservations, to the extent that Ben-Gurion himself admitted that they considered it "a strategic error and badly timed" (p. 35). As I mentioned earlier, although Gelber's formulation of the essential features of the historical situation is similar and although he uses many of the same sources, his conclusions and the moral he draws are quite different from those of Shapira. Nevertheless, it must be said that, given their opposing points of departure and their empathy for their respective "heroes," one might have expected more substantial differences. Gelber's point of departure is one of unreserved agreement and identification not only with Ben-Gurion's goals but also with his modus operandi. In his opinion, Ben-Gurion could not have adopted any other approach, if he was really interested in converting the Haganah into a regular army at the level of both ' 'field'' and high command and in subordinating it to a single political authority, whether on the personal or the institutional plane. To prove this proposition he presents a systematic and most impressive description of the anomalous situation that had characterized the relationship between the military command and the political leadership before Ben-Gurion assumed responsibility for security matters. Typical was the plethora of bodies concerned with security: the "National Command," "Security Committee," "Situation Committee" and the general staff. One result of this situation was a considerable degree of symbiosis between the party system and the military, something that was undoubtedly intolerable in a society striving to adhere to democratic rules and patterns of life. Gelber, who identifies totally with Ben-Gurion, therefore tries to interpret the opposition to Ben-Gurion accordingly. Indeed, it is not particularly difficult to find evidence for tendencies in Mapam that could well have justified Ben-Gurion's fears of his historical partners; or at least, to use such evidence to consolidate his position as prime minister and minister of defense. Mapam rejected Ben-Gurion's stateoriented ideology in general and its application in the military sphere in particular.


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In its view, this conception was aimed explicitly at abolishing the hegemony of the labor movement; hence it endangered the very existence of the movement, in view of the threatening presence of the Irgun and its allies on the right. This position, expressed in various ways, in particular by such "extremists" as Ben-Aharon, taught Ben-Gurion that Mapam wished to maintain the Palmah as a military-party force, a goal that Ben-Gurion, of course, rejected out of hand, both in theory and in practice. Party and narrow sectional influence could be eliminated from the IDF by establishing an unequivocal chain of command and clearly delineating areas of responsibility and authority between the political and military echelons. Put differently, this implied practical implementation of the principles underlying the relations between military and society in a democratic state. This, according to Gelber, was the crux of the conflict, affecting as it did matters of principle. Gelber does not deny that Ben-Gurion was also motivated by rather narrow political considerations in view of the almost exclusive influence of Mapam it^ the Palmah brigades. He claims, however, that such considerations were marginal. In his view, and in obvious contrast to Shapira's more charitable verdict on this count, Mapam advocated a completely different pattern of civil military-state relations. Gelber cites a tentative attempt to provide a theoretical basis for this pattern on the part of one of Mapam's ideologues, Menahem Dorman, who held that the distinctive character of a regular army, subject to formal discipline and routine existence in barracks, did not stem from the needs of a professional army, but was dictated by internal needs: to protect the army from external influences and the infusion of rebellious tendencies. . . . [Therefore,] the existence or abolition of the Palmah brigade implies the existence or abolition of the principle: the unity of labor and defense (pp. 170-171).

A more prosaic formulation of this position came from Yaakov Hazan, who expressed his opposition to depoliticization of the army: We should urge all our comrades in the army to engage in politics just as they engage in military matters. ... To my mind, the person who must be most political is precisely the soldier. . . . Only then will he be a good soldier, a revolutionary one, a member of the fighting Zionist-socialist camp (p. 225).

In sum, Gelber believes that it was absolutely essential to disband the Palmah, first, because by the end of the war it was no longer fulfilling its distinctive military and organizational objectives, and, second, because its distinctive social character had also been effaced, since during the war ' 'the Palmah units had been cut off from the soil in which they had grown and developed—the settlements of the kibbutz movement" (p. 263). Do these two studies provide the reader with a full understanding of the confrontation between Ben-Gurion and part of the political and defense leadership of Israel at that time? The answer is only partly in the affirmative. Undoubtedly, Shapira and Gelber have made an additional contribution to our understanding of the essence of the confrontation. Nevertheless, there are two reasons why one cannot confidently determine which of the two versions is the more accurate. The first reason is

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"technical" in nature—each author covers different ground and in a different degree of detail. Second, whereas one author presents a spirited and uncritical justification of Ben-Gurion, the victor, the other, though also justifying BenGurion's actions, overtly professes considerable empathy (not necessarily identification) for the defeated party, which was adversely affected by the harsh tactics of the victor. Excessive empathy with the victor and enthusiastic defense of the loser in this historic encounter are sometimes detrimental to objective research. Anita Shapira's skepticism and her refusal to be blinded by Ben-Gurion's aura are certainly laudable. Nevertheless, one might have expected her to observe, in light of the forty years that have elapsed, that Mapam's fears of Ben-Gurion's intentions and machinations were rather exaggerated. Moreover, the politicization of the IDF, even in accordance with her more sympathetic version of Mapam, might have been catastrophic, given the conditions of Israeli political culture. On the other hand, Gelber's absolute justification of Ben-Gurion sometimes results in an unbalanced diagnosis of the events, and, in particular, of moods within Mapam in that period. For example, his apprehensions, whether implicit or explicit, as to the threat posed by Mapam to democratic government in Israel are grossly exaggerated. One would be hard pressed to find a single party on the Israeli political scene professing more national responsibility than Mapam, which was manifest not only in practice, but also in the party's ideological principles. As stated at the outset, the disbanding of the Palmah command should be viewed against the background of the transition from Yishuv to state and the need to redefine the functions of the national center vis-a-vis those of the particularistic groups. It was perhaps in the area of security and defense that the contradiction and tension between the particularistic-sectional identity of bodies with a long tradition of autonomy, on the one hand, and the demand for subordination to state authority, on the other, first came to the fore. Of course, other factors were involved as well— the competition for sympathy and the political mobilization among Israeli youth. There were also differences of mentality as well as divergences of opinion as to how the military should be organized and, particularly important, as to the nature of the boundaries between the IDF and the civilian sectors. The leftwing was in favor of permeable boundaries. In fact, it advocated a position of near-symbiosis between the two sectors. The left wing also justified the many situations of formal and (even more so) informal contact between the army and the civilian sector on the political and social level. This was a "movement-oriented" conception par excellence. BenGurion, who adhered to a "state-oriented" ideology as against a "movementoriented" one, advocated more clear-cut and integral boundaries, a more formal division between the two sectors, particularly on the political level. At first sight, the victor in the confrontation was Ben-Gurion. The truth of the matter is, however, that the mutual relationship between the IDF and the civilian elite, including the top echelons of the political establishment, has crystallized in a rather distinctive pattern, at least in comparison with other democratic societies. Paradoxically, this pattern is in some respects closer to the conception advocated by Ben-Gurion's opponents, although in other ways it adheres to his own ideas, albeit with a few significant exceptions.


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Those who at the time upheld the continued existence of the Palmah must surely be proud today that some of its most salient social characteristics are still evident, at least in the elite units of the IDF. And they certainly do not regret that Israeli society has been molded more in the image of a "nation in arms" than of a "garrison state." On the other hand, Ben-Gurion would have probably taken exception to certain phenomena such as the excessive involvement of the defense establishment in decision-making processes in security matters or the tremendous power built up until recently by the Israeli military-industrial complex. However, such questions lie entirely beyond the scope of the period and events discussed by Anita Shapira and Yoav Gelber. MOSHE LISSAK The Hebrew University


Book Reviews


Gideon Aran, Erez yisrael: bein dat upolitikah (The Land of Israel: Between Politics and Religion). Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1985. 89 pp. As Isaiah Berlin once put it, there are two types of scholars: the fox and the hedgehog. The former has a wide-ranging view of the world, and tries to encompass as much as possible within the purview of the research subject—at times, at the price of a certain superficiality. The latter, on the other hand, has a rather narrow focus, preferring to dig deep within the specific confines of the topic at hand, thereby avoiding (and losing) the larger picture. In the book before us, Gideon Aran acts the hedgehog, and does an admirable job in getting to the roots of the phenomenon he studies. Unfortunately, on occasion he has a tendency to play the fox— not altogether successfully. The problem is immediately apparent in a title that suggests an analysis of a rather broad topic. Only when one opens the cover does the real subject appear in a subheading: "The Movement to Stop the Withdrawal from Sinai." And even then, in the author's own words, the study "focuses on the movement's hard-core members—its leaders, zealous workers, and most committed adherents" (p. 9), at most about fifteen hundred by his estimation. Moreover, a mere two paragraphs are devoted to the movement's parliamentary strategy and activities. A complete picture of the movement is, by the author's own admission, not being offered, but rather a close-up view of its extra-parliamentary tactics and internal ideological debates. Yet, despite these self-imposed limitations (altogether legitimate, albeit constricting), Aran does not succeed in banishing the fox, especially in his concluding section. Thus, any assessment of the book must proceed on two levels: of microanalysis—perceptive, enlightening, and thought provoking; and of macro-implications—unsubstantiated and unpersuasive. In the short space allotted for this review, it would be difficult to enumerate all the analytical pearls to be found in the book. A number of them should suffice for our purposes. 1. The movement's ultimate purpose was less a matter of establishing Israel's international borders and the country's relationship with its neighbors but more a matter of clearly defining and reinforcing the Israelis' attitude and attachment to their land. In other words, the struggle was largely "internal" in both senses of the word—for the country's citizens (much less so Israel's international policymakers) and about the values by which they shall live (pp. 8–9). 2. Such values could be summed up in one sentence: "The land of Israel, for the nation of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel." However, for tactical reasons, only the first two-thirds of the triad were highlighted, even though the third element constitutes the raison d'être of the Jewish experience. In short, the movement was not averse to employing somewhat misleading measures for 325

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Books in Review short-term political gain, for example, attracting non-religious support (p. 14). Even worse, a conscious attempt was made by the movement's religious leaders to present the non-religious supporters as equal partners (totally false) in order to show the nation a "balanced" front, comprehensively representing Israeli Jews of whatever stripe (p. 24).

3. In a sense, the movement's hard core were not even representative of Israel's mainstream religious Orthodoxy, constituting rather a form of "Messianic sect" (p. 37). Nevertheless, this was not a "normal" type of modern religious sect that usually tries to escape the world of dirty politics and "real life," but rather one in which religious fervor and hardball political tactics were brought to bear in order to change political reality (p. 48). 4. Unfortunately for the movement, there existed a number of inherent and latent contradictions in its tactical program. For example, numerous adherents moved to Yamit and other settlements in the area in order to bolster the movement's physical presence and attachment to the land. But the institutions' hastily set-up synagogues and yeshivot are the Jewish vehicles par excellence for migration and rapid movement, thereby suggesting quite the opposite of social stability and resolute intention to stay (p. 41). Few attempts were made by the movement at establishing additional agricultural settlements. Indeed, the greatest dilemma lay in what type of relationship to form with Yamit's long-term settlers who obviously early on had the "right" pioneering spirit and attachment to Sinai, but who now were willing to give it up without much of a fight in return for appropriate monetary compensation. Most of the movement's supporters had far less to lose in the withdrawal, thus cheapening their zealous stand on the issue. At the end, the two sides even came to blows! (p. 53). 5. In the final analysis, the movement's powers of redefining the struggle allowed it to "overcome" its failure (and rank failure, of course, was the almost inevitable outcome). After the fact, its self-defined primary aim now was seen as not necessarily stopping the withdrawal but rather raising the right issues, the level of debate and the enthusiasm of its supporters (pp. 72–73). No matter what the concrete outcome, the movement saw itself as a "success." In fact, in some movement headquarters matters were stood completely on their head. "The Land is not ours by right of conquest . . . and our attachment to it is not a physical one," wrote one of its rabbinical spiritual leaders after the withdrawal. He continues, "Our task is to understand events and execute our ideals ... through learning Torah" (pp. 78-79). The missing third of the triad had been reclaimed, but at the cost of bodily injury to the former two pillars of land and people. Had Aran stopped here, this book might have served as a model of monographic scholarship. But what is one to do with the following unsupported conclusions? "It is clear beyond any doubt that the [movement's] consequences for Israel, and perhaps the entire region, are important"; "It is the source of what is called and generally accepted to be the 'national trauma' "; "The Movement influenced not only the national morale but also the public style and whole spectrum of Israeli

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political forces and their tendencies" (p. 69). But, one must ask: What consequences? What national trauma? (Aran himself devotes ample space to the pseudo aspects of the whole experience—the posturings for the media, the non-violent "violence" against the army, etc.) What political influence? (The right lost ground in the ensuing elections, and once again "territorial concessions" are on the public agenda.) In short, this study is highly recommended as an exposition of a temporarily significant extra-parliamentary movement, and as such is a valuable contribution to a growing body of literature on Israeli protest politics. This is one hedgehog, however, that got itself into trouble by venturing too far from its own particular patch. SAM LEHMAN-WILZIG Bar-Ilan University

Stephen Berk, Year of Crisis, Year of Hope. Russian Jewry and the Pogroms of 1881-1882. Contributions in Ethnic Studies, No. 11 XVI, 231 pp. Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press, 1985.

The year 1881 is usually regarded as a turning point in the history of Russian Jewry. Both the rise of the Zionist movement and the start of the mass migration to the United States have been described as resulting from the pogroms of 1881. In this volume Stephen Berk tries to deal both with the events of that momentous year and their implications. Given the significance attributed to the period, any attempt to do so is difficult. The lack of access to Russian archives relevant to the topic does not make the task easier. Berk apparently aimed his book at intelligent readers who have little knowledge of modern Jewish history. Thus his first chapter is a survey of pre-pogrom Russian Jewish history that (as he himself notes in the preface) is based largely on secondary literature and offers little new to anyone who has read Baron or any of the standard works on the period. The last chapter deals with the great wave of immigration to America and here as well the ground covered is not new, just as his description of the beginnings of Palestinophilism also has few surprises for readers familiar with the literature on Zionism. As Berk did not have access to unpublished materials, there are no archival surprises in his analysis of the pogroms and their effects. He subscribes to the approach that downplays the role of the government in organizing the pogroms, and he emphasizes the role of Brafman in justifying antisemitism—though he does not take an unequivocal stand on the key question of whether the government was in any way behind the pogroms or not. He is at his strongest in bringing together the varying responses to the pogroms in the Russian-language press—both Jewish and general. He is careful to note the economic factors that contributed to the spread of the pogroms in the south. This discussion would have benefited from a considera-

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tion of the situation in Lithuania because the economic situation there was similarly grim, but the pogroms did not spread north. He tends to accept at face value reports that could have been enlightening had they been treated with some skepticism. A claim, for example, that for some Jewish students, this was the first time they had encountered antisemitism (p. 102) needs to be taken with a grain of salt. One of the occupational hazards of working in Jewish history is a kind of tunnel vision. This expresses itself in attempts to measure behavior in one Jewish community solely in comparison to behavior in other contemporary Jewish communities or in that same community in other periods without broader frameworks of comparison. Berk does not escape unscathed from this problem. In his very interesting discussion of U.S. government responses to the pogroms, he never asks whether the American public and government reacted in similar ways to other cases of injustice in the world or whether they were particularly sensitive to the plight of the Jews— and if so, why? Similarly, he analyzes the responses of Jews to the attacks not in terms of minority behavior generally but only in the light of the ways Jewish communities behaved in the past (p. 138). These are issues that hopefully Berk can address himself to in future studies. Berk claims that in response to the pogroms of 1881, Russian Jews "rose from their torpor to become active participants in determining their destiny." Berk does not make a totally convincing case for this. The Jewish migration to the United States was mainly from the economically depressed northwest, not from the pogrom regions, and it would have taken place even without any pogroms. Moreover, Jewish migration to the pogrom regions in the south continued. Given the limitations on Jewish assimilation and the general atmosphere of nationalism, a Jewish nationalist movement would likewise have appeared even without the pogroms— though perhaps later and with more limited appeal. Thus the question of the real impact of the pogrom year still remains open. The main contribution of his book, and it is a significant one, is precisely in pointing out the limits of his own thesis. For a variety of reasons, Russian antisemitism has received more attention than the grudging, pragmatic attitude of many Russians toward Jews, and Berk demonstrates how the events of 1881 were not a turning point in the attitudes of this latter group. Similarly, Jewish nationalism and socialism, which are attributed to the pogroms, have received more coverage than movements for accommodation or assimilation in Russian society. Berk carefully documents the complex government responses to the pogroms and the impact of the pogroms on the revolutionary movement. He concludes that the pogroms had little impact on Jewish revolutionaries. Despite a lot of talk, there was little change in the positions of most of the Jewish elite groups. The drive of many Russian Jews to enter Russian society continued unabated and apparently many of the students who so dramatically "returned" to their people "recovered" from their despair. Berk's careful and broad coverage of the varied responses makes this very clear. Berk is at his strongest with Russian-language sources and his survey of them is a valuable contribution. For the Hebrew-language sources, Frankel and Slutzky, among others, remain useful supplements. The book reads very well and avoids the cumbersome style common in monographic studies. It should serve as a valuable

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corrective to a simplistic understanding of the period and the responses to the pogroms. SHAUL STAMPFER The Hebrew University

Saul Bernstein, The Renaissance of the Torah Jew. Hoboken, N. J.: Ktav Publishing House, 1985. 393 pp. Saul Bernstein as administrator of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America from the 1940s through the 1970s occupied a center front-row seat during those crucial years of historic turnabout in the fortunes of the Orthodox Jewish community in America. During this time the group voted "least likely to succeed" acquired the image of the "true survivors" and the representatives of "authentic Judaism." Obviously inspired by what he had observed and driven by some sense of providential mandate, Bernstein has set down a partisan, yet critical, account of the resurgence of Orthodox Judaism after the Second World War. The author begins by sketching the by now well-known story of the breakdown of traditional Jewish life under the impact of modernism, on the one hand, and the political upheavals of the nineteenth century, on the other, leading to the great migrations that lasted from the 1880s until the First World War. In describing the religious anarchy that prevailed in the United States during those years, Bernstein notes that there was no organized community, no kehillah and that among the few rabbis who migrated "there were none of commanding leadership stature" (p. 32). The author, however, refrains from explicit criticism of the rabbinical leadership in Europe for so badly misjudging the developing situation in America. Bernstein claims that the mass defections from Orthodoxy during this period were occasioned by simple ignorance of the tradition, a general insecurity that inhibited the public display of Jewish religious symbols, a refusal to be limited by religious observance in the universal pursuit of upward mobility and the rapid movement away from the areas of first settlement. The challenge was essentially sociological rather than intellectual or ideological. While the renaissance of Orthodoxy in America is generally considered to have taken place after the Second World War, it is doubtful whether it could have happened even then were there not already in place several healthy areas of Orthodox life and activity that had managed to escape the ravages of early twentieth-century America. Bernstein correctly identifies the following institutions that had demonstrated survivability prior to the end of the First World War: the Young Israel movement; a handful of yeshivot, mainly in the East (including what was later to become Yeshiva University); the Union of Orthodox Rabbis (Agudat Harabbonim); and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations (UOJC), which had been organized in 1898 by Henry Pereira Mendes. These, in some sense, were the roots

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with which mid-century events such as the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel could interact and upon which the post-Second World War resurgence was based. The heart of the work is the identification of the key developments—in terms of institutions and personalities—that over the past forty years constituted the "Renaissance of the Torah Jew": the growth of the day-school movement and of yeshivot gedolot; the development of the OU kashrut program of the UOJC in conjunction with the Rabbinical Council of America, which today has a membership of nearly one thousand rabbis; the appearance of the English-language publications, Tradition, Jewish Life and the Jewish Observer (Agudat Israel); the transplantation and phenomenal increase of hasidic communities such as Lubavitch and Satmar in New York; the development of Torah Towns such as Monroe, New Square and Monsey and the unique Breuer community in Washington Heights, reflecting the approach of S. R. Hirsch; the adult studies programs and the Employment Bureau (for Sabbath observers) of the Young Israel movement, now reporting 250,000 congregants in 163 branches in sixteen states (sometimes called "baseball Orthodoxy" because of its ability to integrate with some aspects of American culture); the development of a network of youth-group activities and summer camps by Young Israel, Bnai Akiva, National Council of Synagogue Youth (NCSY) and Agudat Israel; and the increasing growth and sophistication of Agudat Israel as a result of its ties with the yeshiva and hasidic elements. Bernstein makes some interesting and valid observations about the Orthodox Jew. While admitting that his attachment to Orthodoxy is usually acquired from the environment at home, the author points out, "To remain as well as to newly become an Orthodox Jew, the aspect of voluntary choice is always present." Bernstein notes, with a touch of despair, "the pronounced individualism" of the Orthodox Jew with every one insisting upon his synagogue, his school, his rabbi— all of which fit him precisely. This leads to duplication, waste, divisiveness and the inability to unite except in moments of great crisis. One of the crucial elements responsible for the change in Orthodoxy in the United States is the appearance of a sense of the "binding force of the Torah command" leading to a "stress on Halachic exactitude," depth in Torah knowledge and consistency in observance. These have inevitably led to an emphasis on the observance of the Shabbat, kashrut, and taharat hamishpahah. The author claims that both the number and proportion of Orthodox Jews in the Western world is greater today than it was at the end of the Second World War. Their strong natural growth, their proven ability to retain their own, the increasing flow from the non-Orthodox to the Orthodox and the widening of their scope and influence lead him to look to the future with confidence. However (as he regretfully admits), "a conceptualization of the relationship of Torah to contemporary society, culture and science has not yet emerged" (p. 361). This reviewer found those chapters in which the author deals with Jewish communities in other countries too sketchy and difficult to evaluate in the absence of comparative facts and figures. Again, in reporting on specific issues within the Orthodox community (e.g., membership in inter-denominational agencies), Bernstein fails to relate to the widening rift between the so-called modern Orthodox and

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traditional Orthodox, of which these issues are but the symptoms and in terms of which they can be understood. In dealing with Reform and Conservative Judaism, Bernstein is partisan but polite; his observations concerning their significance and future are weakened by a lack of footnotes indicating sources and studies. This book is an interesting addition to the growing literature on contemporary Orthodoxy; somewhere between a chronicle and a history. Bernstein catches the spirit of the "Torah Jew" of today in these brief sentences: He is a Jew because he wants to b e . . . . He can participate in the contemporary world without rupture of his identity. He can speak its language without losing his own. He is the Jew of all the ages arrived at the 20th century.

SHUBERT SPERO Bar-Han University

David Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History, New York: Schocken Books, 1986. 244 pp.

This thought-provoking "meditation on all of Jewish history" ranges in its discussion from the Bible to the nuclear age. Although several attempts have been made to posit a continuous Jewish political history from the nation's origins to the present, Biale offers the first sustained discussion of what the individual links in the Jews' political evolution were and how they might be understood in their general cultural and historical context. Biale's primary contribution to Jewish political history is conceptual. He cogently presents the various political experiences of the Jewish people, both in the land of Israel and in the Diaspora, in a more balanced perspective than has generally been the case in the past. As he points out, although these experiences have usually been depicted as representing either "power" (e.g., the Kingdom of Judea) or "powerlessness" (e.g., the medieval kehillah), both unlimited sovereign power and unqualified powerlessness are mythic categories. The reality of Jewish political history lies between these two poles. This argument is in many respects an elaboration of a theme first introduced by Salo Baron when he challenged the "lachrymose" view of Jewish history. Baron himself, however, rejected politics as an analytical framework for interpreting Jewish history. Simon Dubnow, too, whom Biale mentions as one historian who appreciated the political element in Jewish Diaspora history, rejected the term "political" as an appropriate description of Jewish public life. Dubnow, in fact, argued that the Jews were a "spiritual nation" who had transcended the lower evolutionary phase of political nationhood. Thus, by embracing the terms "politics" and "power" and by rejecting the notion of Jewish political "passivity"—a course already suggested in preliminary form by Ismar Schorsch (1976) and Amos Funkenstein (1982)—Biale is breaking new historiographical ground. Biale discusses the medieval community with its rabbinic elite; the decline of the

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community under absolutist rule and the concomitant celebration of the absolutist state by the eighteenth-century Jewish Enlightenment; the emergence of Jewish political movements—chiefly in Eastern Europe—in the last two decades of the nineteenth century; and the survival in the post-Holocaust era of only two paradigmatic models of Jewish power and politics: the Israeli state and the democratic pluralism of American society. It is in this last area that Biale ties together the various strands of the argument he has been developing and where he shows why an understanding of the true balance of power and powerlessness in the Jewish past is crucial to the formulation of a Jewish political worldview today. For all its historical argumentation, then, this is a book with a decidedly contemporary message. In its own way, Biale's argument is reminiscent of the one presented by David Roskies in Against the Apocalypse. Both Biale and Roskies argue the case for a continuous tradition of Jewish vitality and creative self-adjustment to historical reality that offers to the contemporary Jew a variety of viable models and perspectives. Most important, both deny the Holocaust a defining role in what is most authentic about Jewish history and Jewish identity. If it is comprehended in the broad sweep of the Jewish past, they maintain, we can avoid the twin pitfalls of taking all of Jewish history since the destruction of the Second Temple to be a prelude to the Holocaust and of taking the need to survive in a world in which a Holocaust can occur as the epitome of contemporary Jewish values. Because Biale presents his book in the form of an extended essay, he offers certain suggestive propositions that invite further discussion. His insight that American Jewry possesses collective power by virtue of its integration into American social, intellectual, scientific and political elites, and yet that it has less and less collective power as the process of individual integration proceeds, is one such contention. Similarly, his argument that the Jews' "relative powerlessness [in] the nineteenth century and the decline of the traditional Jewish leadership were the precondition for [their] quest for power at the beginning of the twentieth" strikes this reader as being eminently true, and deserving of more detailed substantiation. There are, however, certain assertions that are, I feel, overstated. Is it really the case that "The Jews have chosen (emphasis added) the modern nation-state, whether in the form of the State of Israel or American democracy, as the best guarantee for their survival" out of a "shrewd understanding of the political forms" of the age? What alternative political forms were available for the Jews to "choose," and did not the modern state require the Jews to accommodate themselves to it? On some points, one may wonder why the discussion is so very brief. Although Biale mentions the failure of American Jews to make their political influence more strongly felt during the 1930s and 1940s, this failure surely deserves more than two sentences in a discussion of the transformation of Jewish politics in America. There are, indeed, a few other places in this book that seem to show evidence of overzealous editing. Such reservations aside, this is a book that ought to make an impact on the academic community and lay readers alike. Any work that challenges the myths of collective memory, if it is as well argued as this book is, should inspire others to

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reexamine and reinterpret previously accepted theories. The historical discussion in Power and Powerlessness makes a very strong case for opening up for intensive investigation the political history of Jewish communities in specific countries and periods. Biale's work is an eloquent reassessment of the problem of Jewish power and vulnerability—a problem that contemporary Jews can better confront if they have a realistic idea of how Jews have done so in the past. ELI LEDERHENDLER The Hebrew University Tel-Aviv University

Jakub Blum and Vera Rich, The Image of the Jew in Soviet Literature. The PostStalin Period. New York and London: Ktav Publishing House, Published for the Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1984, vii, 276pp.

The idea of this volume seems to be inspired by the well-known survey The Jew in Post-Stalin Soviet Literature written by Professor Maurice Friedberg and published in Washington, D.C., in 1970. As with Professor Friedberg's concise study, its general aim, apparently, is to describe how official (or semi-official) ideology presented the Jews to public opinion during the late Stalin years and how this presentation gradually changed during the years following his death in 1953. This reviewer has, at the outset, to confess that his knowledge of Belorussian literature is extremely limited, and for this reason he will concentrate on the first part of the book. But to his mind the material collected and presented by Ms. Rich is both interesting and instructive. As for the second section by Blum, the range of texts that he has read is quite comprehensive. There is some penetrating analysis, for example, that of the short novel, Sotnikov, by Vasil Bykov (not Vasily as Blum has it). From the text on the dust cover, incidentally, we learn that Jakub Blum is the pseudonym of an East European scholar who came to the West some years ago, but who for personal reasons wishes to remain anonymous; it also turns out that his contribution was translated into English, but from what language we are not told (p. 97). His general conclusions are unobjectionable enough—with the exception of one phrase, "The authors who write about Jews are nearly all Jews themselves" (p. 87). Nonetheless, his section of the book provokes a number of questions and thoughts that to the mind of this reviewer are rather important. First, it is difficult to understand why a study published in 1984 does not incorporate any material that appeared after 1972. This gap is simply mentioned in the introduction by Jack Miller, but the reason for the lag—this unforgivable lag, one should say—remains a mystery. And Miller himself apparently fails to realize the full importance of publications dating from the late 1970s and the early 1980s. He mentions a novel by Anatoly Rybakov (Heavy Sand) and a play by Alexander

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Borshchagovsky (the title is not "The Eve of Babi Yar" as Mr. Miller puts it, but "Ladies' Tailor"), but he does not refer to Grigory Kanovich and Dina Kalinovskaya, who represent something of a revival in Russian-language Jewish writing. Even more serious, however, is the fact that Blum's study is totally lacking in historical depth: whereas Vera Rich provides her readers with a glimpse of Jewish images even in pre-Soviet Belorussian literature (pp. 113-118), Blum confines himself to a single phrase to be found in his conclusions: "If we compare the postStalin period with the early Soviet period, we soon perceive the absence of such characters as those of Isaac Babel, Ehrenburg's Lazik Roytshvants or the characters in Fadeev's Razgrom etc." (p. 88). This judgment is especially regretable as a distinct Jewish literature in Russian existed not only after but also before the Revolution, and the poverty of Jewish images in the post-Stalin era cannot be fully appreciated unless it is seen against the background of characters created by Semion Yushkevich, David Aizman, Alexander Kipen, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Isaac Babel, Mikhail Kozakov, Semion Gekht. Another crucial question involves issues of definition and demarcation. One could put this question as follows: What does the word "literature" in the title of the book mean for the two authors? Whereas for Vera Rich it is confined to works of pure fiction (belles-lettres)—including, at most, ocherki ("sketches"), which are half-documentary and half-fictitious—Blum brings into his field of vision and analysis also, and on equal terms, memoirs, literary criticism and even pieces from purely propaganda periodicals such as Molodoi Kommunist (p. 63). But is it really possible to consider as "literature" the devious and sterile words of an Alexander Dymshits about Osip Mandelstam written as a preface to the first posthumous edition of the poet's collected works, but previously published in a highly specialized review, Voprosy literatury? Yet, Blum gives up to Dymshits's "acrobatic essay" (Mr. Blum's phrase, p. 27) two full pages of his study—out of ninety!—devoting to him exactly twice as much attention as he does to Emmanuil Kazakevich. Speaking bluntly, Vera Rich's position seems to be utterly right, whereas Blum's is completely wrong. It should be added that the very long analysis of Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoirs (pp. 21-27) would seem to be irrelevant; the hero of this work, one of the greatest Russian poets of this century and one who totally confronted the terrible realities of Soviet existence, was not a Jew; he was not only fatally estranged from his Jewish origins, the victim of a self-hate complex, but was also a convert to Christianity. (By the way, Mr. Blum's definition of Osip Mandelstam as "a gifted poet of the acmeist school" (p. 16) is a crying understatement, to put it mildly.) Besides, as the two volumes of Mrs. Mandelstam's memoirs have so far never been published in the USSR, they belong as much to "samizdat" and "tamizdat" as do the works of Solzhenitsyn and Maksimov, and they should have been included, if anywhere, in Blum's sub-chapter on this type of publication. Whenever he attempts a strictly literary, aesthetic analysis, it often turns out to be inadequate or simply wrong. Thus, when he characterizes a literary phenomenon, he tends to explain what (or who), to his mind, "symbolizes" what—and that is all! Writing about a secondary character in a story published in 1966 he says, "She

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is an unusual type in modern Soviet literature as she does not embody any dogma or propaganda thesis" (p. 64). This sweeping generalization applies accurately, perhaps, to the literature produced during the last years of Stalin's tyranny and terror (1949-53), but it is utterly inapplicable to the 1960s and early 1970s when a whole new "school" of young prose writers, such as Vasily Aksionov, Anatoly Gladilin, Anatoly Pristavkin and Vladimir Amlinsky was at work, and when "Moscow Stories" by Yury Trifonov and "Money for Maria" by Valentin Rasputin had already been published—to mention only some of the best-known names. Certainly, the literary value of different pieces published then was uneven, but none of these authors merits Blum's scathing comment. Again, he does not seem to be sufficiently well informed about either Soviet literary personalities or the internal life of the literary world. Thus, he can interpret the novel of Natalia Ilina, "The Return," as "a work . . . which was capable of inciting antisemitism'' (p. 72). If the mere presence of a Jewish villain is enough to incite antisemitism, then Isaac Bashevis Singer, let us say, is clearly an antisemite. There really can be no escaping the obligation to discover the intentions and aims of the author in question. As for Natalia Ilina, a friend of Anna Akhmatova, she, as it happens, has always been above suspicion as far as antisemitism is concerned. Blum describes Vsevolod Kochetov as an antisemite in connection with the depiction of Zinoviev in his novel "Angel of Fall," although he notes that the author "nowhere mentions that Zinoviev was a Jew" (p. 34) and nowhere says "in so many words" that he was an "alien from the ethnic as well as the class point of view" (p. 37). The reason for this expose is that Kochetov was "the editor of the conservative and Stalinist Oktyabr" (p. 36). Well, it is true that Kochetov was not only the worst kind of Stalinist and conservative but was also totally without talent, a literary cypher. However, this did not necessarily make him an antisemite, and the Moscow literary establishment was well aware that he was not. Similarly, we are told that Ilya Konstantinovsky, the author of the novel Prescription, "is not interested in the full vindication of the Jews or in discovering the reasons for their tragic fate during the war" (p. 43). Konstantinovsky is not one of the giants of modern Russian literature, but if he has been interested in anything, it is specifically in the Jewish fate during the war. (A manuscript of his unpublished novel Seder in Warsaw was smuggled out of the USSR and has come out in Paris, in French translation.) Blum's reading of Mr. Konstantinovsky's novel is clearly wrong. Evidently, he does not know that Mr. Konstantinovsky is a Bessarabian Jew who lost a considerable part of his family in the Holocaust. Nor is he aware of the fact that losif Gerasimov (p. 46) and Lev Nikulin (pp. 5354) are both Jewish. Of the latter, Blum asserts that he was known as an antisemite "in the Soviet cultural and political context" (p. 55). This is simply incorrect. Nikulin had the reputation of being a coward and an NKVD (KGB) informer; he hated being reminded of his Jewish origins, but he was not an antisemite. On the other hand, Blum wrongly ranks among Jews Rafael Khitarov (p. 15), Vsevolod Meyerhold (p. 16), Viktor Shklovsky (p. 31), Boris Polevoi (p. 41) and Sergei Eisenstein (p. 91). A paragraph devoted to Samuil Marshak (pp. 6-7) deserves a special comment. What Blum writes about Marshak's memoirs is correct, but he is unaware of the fact

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that this honorable and respected Soviet poet, translator and editor was in his youth (and up to the early 1920s) an ardent Zionist, who published his poems in different Russian Jewish periodicals and literary almanacs, who visited Palestine and wrote about his journey. Marshak's recollections of his early years lie by omission and are thus very Soviet. One last remark: Mr. Blum mixes up two Markovs—the poet who attacked Yevtushenko after the publication of "Babi Yar" is not Georgii Markov, but Alexei Markov. Georgii Markov was (and still is) a high apparatchik in the Union of Writers; Alexei Markov has always been a nobody. Unfortunately, the above list of inaccuracies is far from complete. SHIMON MARKISH The Hebrew University University of Geneva

S. Daniel Breslauer (comp.), Contemporary Jewish Ethics: A Bibliographical Survey, Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press, 1985. xi + 213 pp. S. Daniel Breslauer (comp.), Modern Jewish Morality: A Bibliographical Survey. Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press, 1986. x + 239 pp.

The compiler, who teaches religious studies at the University of Kansas (Lawrence), has divided his bibliography into two volumes of unequal scope, the first one dealing with theoretical concerns, the second with "concrete decisions to practical issues" (Modern Jewish Morality, p. 6). Both volumes include a brief introductory survey, followed by annotated entries. Let us deal with the technical aspects first. The bibliographical work is first-rate. Entries are classified by subject, with three indexes (author, title, subject—where else can one find journal articles by title?) and, in addition, numerous cross-references in the annotations to books and articles of related interest. "Contemporary" in the first volume, says Dr. Breslauer, means published "between 1968-1983"; but it should be pointed out that, although the articles are contemporary in that sense, the texts studied often are not. There are studies of Talmudic ethics, of the medieval Sefer hasidim, and so on. Coverage is necessarily selective, giving preference to the ideological journals of the American Jewish religious organizations, but also including articles from more general journals (e.g., Judaism), scholarly periodicals and a number of anthologies and monographs. Although the majority of items are in English and French, German and Hebrew are also represented. The selective process works less well in the second volume. Almost any issue, after all, can be made a "moral" issue. Along with such expected topics as feminism and genetic engineering one finds listed discussions on the importance of the Jewish school, the symbolism of Jewish statehood, histories of the Jewish left and

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other items that are perhaps wasted because one would not expect to find them there. Breslauer, no doubt, wished to show how wide the range of Jewish moral problems could be, but he may have forgotten that he was creating a reference work for students and scholars seeking information in a more circumscribed sphere. The annotations are generally helpful, often very good, and strive for a mixture of objectivity and informativeness. One wishes that the compiler had provided some brief biographic background on the more important modern authors, which would have helped place their ideas in context. But he decided not to try, and from his point of view may have been right. AVRAHAM GREENBAUM University of Haifa

Richard I. Cohen, The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership During the Holocaust. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987. 237 pp. The most painful subject within Holocaust studies is the activity of Jewish organizations in Nazi-occupied Europe. The French case is particularly complex. Neither concentrated nor excluded nor homogeneous, the Jewish population (one can hardly call it a community) of Nazi-occupied France did not lend itself easily to a single authority like the Judenrate of Eastern Europe. The Germans' division of France into two zones with different degrees of autonomy added another layer of difference; in the Unoccupied Zone, pre-existing Jewish organizations continued to function under L'Union generate des Israelites de France (UGIF), the umbrella grouping. The bitter antagonisms that had divided these organizations' leaders before the war—French-born from immigrant, and among the latter, Marxist from Zionist—were further exacerbated by Vichy discrimination and by the unprecedented decisions faced after 1940. Despite its title, Richard I. Cohen's book is mostly about UGIF, a compulsory umbrella organization set up by Vichy under German pressure in November 1941. He tells us much less about other organizations such as the Consistoire (whose archives remain closed to scholars) or about the Resistance, except for those involved in clandestine activity under the cover of UGIF. Thus, the "leadership" of the title is mostly that part of the established, French-born elite that had formed its sense of duty in the relief organizations of the 1930s and who accepted governance of UGIF under the threat of seeing those organizations pass into profane hands. UGIF has been judged mostly negatively, but often with an averted gaze, because its leaders—Andre Baur, Raymond-Raoul Lambert, Marcel Stora—went to their deaths, too. They gained no personal advantage except the gratification of a perhaps-misguided sense of duty. Early works, like Joseph Billig's Le Commissariat general aux questions juives (Paris: 1955), voluntarily left aside this "douloureuse

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histoire'' (vol. 1, 176). Two monographs devoted to it recently by younger scholars are uncompromisingly negative: Cynthia Haft, The Bargain and the Bridle (Chicago: 1983); and Maurice Rajsfus, Des juifs dans la collaboration (Paris: 1980). Cohen has given us the most fully documented and most nuanced discussion so far of UGIF—on the basis of archives in France, Israel and the United States as well as a number of interviews. He wants to restore the historical perspective that he feels has been slighted by "provocative and monistic" approaches (p. ix). The "real life dilemmas" faced after 1940 had simple answers only in retrospect. The Holocaust's gradual revelation in France, masked by occasional lulls, allowed the leaders to respond in ways appropriate for conventional times. They observed traditional moral obligations of charity and social aid (though colored with a paternalist and assimilationist condescension that aroused among immigrant Jews the anger we feel in Maurice Rajsfus's book). It is a strength of Cohen's work that he shows us the cruelty of their dilemma: their very sense of moral obligation— helping the needy, keeping Jewish organizations alive—brought them into active complicity with an unimagined evil. Cohen's perspective is sympathetic to Raymond-Raoul Lambert, head of the southern branch of UGIF, whose journals he has edited (Cornet d' un temoin [Paris: 1985]). Nevertheless, he finds much to blame. Two features of their prewar existence badly prepared French Jewry to deal with the emergency of 1940-44: prewar exclusiveness and the factionalism it engendered, the "dominant theme" (p. viii) of this account, and the "shadow of emancipation" (p. 4) that blinded it to danger and deluded it into a fatal reliance on legality. Only late and underground did a unified French Jewish community find expression in the clandestine Conseil reprsentatif des juifs de France (CRIF). Cohen resists sweeping generalizations about this "intricate" situation, for UGlF-North, in the Occupied Zone, a near-Judenrat, bore little resemblance to the loose "polyarchy" of the southern branch. He finds acts of resistance alongside "sheer cowardice." On the positive side, UGIF's social services met real needs. Both branches limited their functions deliberately, UGIF-North refusing police functions in 1943; UGIF-South refusing to draw on the confiscated funds of Jewish enterprises ("fonds de solidarité"). More Jews were able to escape on their own, however, than with UGIF's legal assistance (p. 149). And UGIF even did real damage. It blinded many to reality. The worst cases were its failure to warn against the deportations of summer 1942, even though it knew in advance (p. 79); its inability to protect the immigrant Jews among its own staff members; and its neglect to hide the children in its care in 1943. By this point, it had become a "horrible mockery" of its own purposes (p. 95). The basic failures were factionalism and legalism. Unable to "rise above the moment," the leaders failed to recognize the point when legal action had become a trap. Did other leaders propose more realistic alternatives? Cohen shows that Consistoire president Jacques Helbronner's bitter early criticism of UGIF was based not on a more effective response to unbelievable evil, but on organizational defensiveness and a traditional conception of purely religious representation, and that he cooperated with UGIF later. Jacques Adler's The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution: Communal Response and Internal Conflicts, 1940-1944 (1987), the best

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documented study of the Paris organizations, argues that the Jewish Communists offered the only really well-adapted response. But that response required early anticipation of the worst and a readiness to break the preoccupation with serving immediate needs. Cohen finds an admirable case in Robert Gamzon's scouting movement, the Eclaireurs Israelites de France (EIF), which evolved from optimism about Vichy to armed resistance, but he admits it could hardly be typical. He is too keenly aware of the human dilemmas involved to "know better" retroactively. ROBERT O. PAXTON Columbia University

Anne and Roger Cowen, Victorian Jews Through British Eyes. The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. xxviii + 196 pp.

This attractively produced volume is a collection of articles and engravings from Victorian illustrated magazines describing Jewish life in England and on the Continent. The compilers' intention is to show how Jews and Jewish topics were presented to Victorian readers in popular, middle-class periodicals such as Punch, the Graphic, and the Illustrated London News. The material they have collected covers a remarkably diverse number of topics and themes. There are unflattering stories about unscrupulous shopkeepers and predatory sheriffs' officers; straightforward accounts of Rothschild weddings, funerals, charities and country entertainments; and sympathetic reports on Jewish suffering in Russia and elsewhere. There are also careful descriptions of the character of Jewish religious and social life in London, whose value is enhanced by the prints that accompany them. Although some of these, such as those of synagogue interiors and of country homes, have been reproduced frequently, most will not be familiar to students of Anglo-Jewry. Of particular interest are the engravings of religious ceremonies that suggest how extensive the anglicization of traditional Judaism was in the late-Victorian period. For example, the illustration depicting the burial of Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler that appeared in the Illustrated London News in February 1890 shows a long row of uniformed boys flanking the grave, the banners of their schools or youth brigades (it is not clear which) whipping about above their heads. The diversity of attitudes represented in the material in this volume clearly demonstrates that there was no uniform image of "the Jew" in Victorian eyes. Prejudice and toleration coexisted, seemingly in harmony. Those seeking to prove the universality of Jew-hatred in the West will find evidence here, as will those who argue that Victorian England provided a more hospitable climate for Jewish integration than other European states. The obvious point is that appraisals of" Jewish status drawn largely from materials such as these are of little value unless balanced by other kinds of evidence as well.

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To their credit, the Cowens do not try to argue either position on the basis of the material they have gathered. Indeed, so scrupulous are they in allowing the articles and illustrations to speak for themselves that they fail to provide any interpretive notes or comments at all. There is a two-page preface explaining how they became collectors of Anglo-Jewish cartoons and prints but no statement of the principles that determined what was included in the volume and what excluded. There is also a short introduction to the Victorian illustrated magazines, but it does not provide the kind of information about their editors, writers, artists and readers that would permit an evaluation of either the representativeness of the views expressed in them or their role in reinforcing sympathetic or hostile images of Jews in middle-class circles. The failure of the editors to provide either contextual or interpretive notes seriously diminishes the utility of the volume to persons without a specialist knowledge of Anglo-Jewish history. Professional historians whose major focus of interest is elsewhere will be frustrated by this failure, whereas non-academic readers, perhaps the major audience for whom the volume was intended, will be left uninstructed, forced to sift through the articles and illustrations on their own. V. D. Lipman's brief introduction to the collection, "The Victorian Jewish Background," will be helpful to the latter but will not satisfy those with more than a casual interest in the subject. Given the effort that went into producing this handsome volume, it is regrettable that so little attention was paid to enhancing its scholarly value. TODD M. ENDELMAN University of Michigan

Mark Cowett, Birmingham's Rabbi: Morris Newfield and Alabama, 1895—1940. Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1986. 222 pp. $22.95.

The study of American Jewish history has really come into its own in the last two decades. Prior to this, with a few notable exceptions, it was dominated by pulpit rabbis and interested laymen. These individuals contributed much to the preservation of records and wrote books that otherwise would not have appeared. Nonetheless, their work frequently lacked grounding in the secondary literature, scholarly analysis and critical judgment. Although this type of work continues to add to our knowledge, it has now been joined by that of trained historians. These historians, frequently coming to American Jewish history from other specialties, have benefited tremendously from the methodology and perspectives of "the new social history" sweeping American historiography. This has been most evident in the writing of urban Jewish history. Various studies of Jews in cities throughout America have used demographic information to plot mobility and socioeconomic transformation, for example. They have also used the comparative perspective in an attempt to place their local findings in relation to what is happening to Jews and gentiles elsewhere. At a time when the "elitism" of biography has been de-emphasized by the

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profession generally, it is not surprising that historians of the American Jewish experience have been relatively slow to enter that arena, especially in relation to religious leaders. To be sure, a few outstanding biographies have appeared (some from the pens of better-grounded rabbis). These include Aaron Rothkoff s biographies of Eliezer Silver and Bernard Revel, Jacob J. Weinstein's biography of Solomon Goldman, Lance Sussman's dissertation on Isaac Leeser, Baila Round Shargel's work on Israel Friedlaender and Melvin Urofsky's study of Stephen S. Wise. These and other studies have tended to deal with rabbi-educators and nationally recognized organizational leaders. Mark Cowett's book (a revised University of Cincinnati dissertation) breaks out of this mold and appears as a prototype of its kind. Although a president of the Reform Central Conference of American Rabbis, Morris Newfield was, in fact, even more important as a local and regional figure. Newfield's struggle with the local values and cultural realities that Cowett so ably depicts was probably more typical of the experiences of the majority of rabbis in America during the first half of the twentieth century (and into the present time) than were those of the leaders depicted in previous biographies. Morris Newfield (1869-1940), born in Hungary into a long line of rabbis, was encouraged by his father to continue the family tradition. His native land offered him an outstanding secular and religious education (he received degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary of Budapest and the Royal Catholic Grand Gymnasium), which he pursued further when he immigrated to America in 1891. In that year he traveled to Cincinnati to attend Isaac Mayer Wise's Hebrew Union College. Wise is widely considered to be the "father of American Reform Judaism" and his institution was intended to train rabbis capable of adjusting to American conditions. Newfield's subsequent rabbinical experiences typified those of many of his classmates who entered pulpits throughout the South and Midwest and tended to remain in one place for much of their career. He became the spiritual leader of Temple Emanu-el in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1895 and held the position for the remainder of his life. When he arrived, Birmingham was undergoing transformation from a frontier town into a city of the "New South." The members of its largely German Jewish community rose with the town through success in business. Their relative acceptance was recognized and manifested through civic pride and the holding of public office. They clearly wanted a rabbi who would fit into Southern culture, reinforce their own assimilationist tendencies while maintaining their association with Judaism and nurture a respected liaison role with the Christian community. These expectations matched the young rabbi's predispositions. Newfield spent the beginning of his career solidifying his position within the congregation and within the Jewish community. He introduced Reform innovations in congregational practices, helped organize social service societies typical of the era and married the daughter of the community's most influential Jewish layman. Unlike many of his colleagues across the country, he befriended the small, but growing number of East European Jews entering his locale. He helped found the city's Federation of Jewish Charities, establish a non-denominational free kindergarten, reorganize the Young Men's Hebrew Association and develop the State

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Conference to promote Jewish activities. In contrast with many northern Reformers, his congregation's choir included Jews and gentiles; he probably invited more Protestant guest speakers and spoke more before secular audiences than they did; and he had to travel to small towns to conduct services (there were only three rabbis in the state in 1908). Supported by his mentor I. M. Wise, he rose in the ranks of the national Reform rabbinical association. His typically Southern and Reform role was as emissary to the gentile community. He befriended liberal ministers and cooperated with them and others in community organizations and causes. During a period of social gospel influence, however limited it was in the American South, Newfield's association with Birmingham's advocates of the movement reinforced his own Jewish social-reform roots. He helped nurture the creation of public schools and fostered health and private-charity efforts on the state and local level. During a time of lay control, he rose to the forefront in the creation of city and state departments of social welfare. He became president of the Anti-Tuberculosis Society, the Red Cross, the Community Chest and the Alabama Sociological Congress. He was elected vice president of the Southern Sociological Congress and was the governor's appointee to the National Child Labor Committee. In these and other endeavors Newfield was always the conciliator. A reformer, he allowed his platform for progress—whether it be secular or religious—to be influenced by his milieu. Recognizing the precarious position of Jews in the South, he measured his words in relation to the Ku Klux Klan, racial justice and labor union activities. Gradually modifying his stance from non-Zionist to Zionist by 1938, Newfield acted as an "agent for change" of a gradual and moderate sort within the Reform rabbinate, as he did also in his adopted home city. Cowett's biography of Morris Newfield is not a parochial ethnic study. It illustrates how Jews were influenced by and, in turn, influenced their host communities. Newfield's early life is placed in the context of Hungarian history, a mixed landscape of tradition with new opportunities opened up by relative secular freedom. His career is related to those of his fellow Hebrew Union College graduates and to national trends in American Reform Judaism. His actions and thoughts are constantly related to the changing environment in Birmingham, in his state and his region as well as to the consequently altered demands of his congregants. Thus Cowett's Newfield is outstanding for its multi-dimensionsal approach and as one of the best works available on an American pulpit rabbi; on a Southern ethnic minister of whatever denomination; and, finally, as a study of a Southern ethnic figure. It is based on interviews, newspapers and archives in Alabama and Cincinnati. Essential reading for anyone interested in Southern and American Jewry as well as the American rabbinate, this book should well serve the profession as a model of its genre. MARK BAUMAN Atlantic Metropolitan College

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Yaakov Geller, Zemihatah ushki'atah shel kehilah—hayehudim haashkenaziim vehasefaradiim beromaniah, 1919-1941 (The Rise and Decline of a Community—The Ashkenazim and Sephardim in Romania, 1919-1941). Tel-Aviv: Moreshet, 1985.

The Jewish community in Romania is one of the oldest in Europe. Because of the annexation of extensive territories (Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania) to the historic Romanian state (the Regat) after the First World War, the number of Jews in the "new" Romania tripled, reaching a total of 800,000. Although the Regat Jewish community numbered only 250,000 souls, this community's institutions and leadership played an important role both politically and in setting the pattern for the internal life of the Jewish minority in the "new" Romania. For various reasons, several important aspects of the Jewish community in the Regat have not yet been dealt with by modern Jewish historiography. Several monographs have been published as well as a long list of mainly descriptive works (e.g., Pinkas kehilot romania, published by Yad Vashem); most of them, however, have not devoted sufficient attention to the organization and function of the Jewish communal framework and certainly not to the nature and quality of the relations between the communities. These subjects form the basis of the book under review, which began as a doctoral thesis submitted to Tel-Aviv University in 1980. In addition to the thematic importance of the work, its main findings are also of interest. These indicate an impressive development of the autonomous government institutions of the Jewish minority in the Regat, beginning with their official recognition by the government in 1932. The book also reveals that, to a great degree, individuals utilized the autonomous framework to make advances in various areas, including religious, health, welfare and educational institutions. Five chapters (5-9) are devoted to a discussion of the social-national and the economic and organizational growth of the Regat communities, accompanied by testimonies, statistical charts and other material, and a separate chapter analyzes the economic-financial status of the community. The period in which the communities and national organizations of Regat Jewry thrived came to an end at the beginning of the Second World War in 1940, when the government of Ion Antonescu withdrew official recognition from the communities and disbanded the elected leaderships. About a year later, half of the veteran Regat communities were dissolved and their Jewish members deported. The author, therefore, expanded the scope of his work through 1941, when the communities still functioned to some degree and were still permitted to exist with an appointed leadership. Their chief task consisted of assisting and absorbing the deportees. A number of additional topics that are included in the last chapters of the book, which themselves chart new ground, are of special thematic importance. These chapters deal with the umbrella organizations of the communities, the rabbis and the "exceptional" communities such as the Orthodox community and the Sephardic community in Bucharest. Furthermore, the analysis of several of the topics covered (e.g., the Federation of Community Unions in Greater Romania) required Geller to

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exceed the defined limits of the book and to deal with these topics beyond the bounds of the Regat as well—first and foremost in the areas annexed to Romania following the First World War—Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania (pp. 150156). Indeed, the section discussing the encounter between Regat Jewry and the Jews in these three regions is one of the most interesting parts of the book and could have been developed further and expanded. This important subject was left, for some reason, to the summary (pp. 281-282). These sections undoubtedly impart an additional dimension to the work, permitting us to view several topics through a broader perspective, and they constitute the first step toward a regional comparison. The outstanding feature of this book is the tremendous amount of detailed information it contains on Regat Jewry; in the 250 pages of text, the sixteen appendixes, and the 950 notes. This information is mostly based directly on writings and memoirs, community reports, rabbinic responsa, sermons, speeches, announcements, periodicals, bylaws of the communities and pamphlets—most of which are detailed in a 40-page bibliography. In addition to entries on archival sources, books, periodical articles, bulletins, reports and other such material, there is information on 109 individuals active in the Regat communities who were interviewed by Geller for the book. No less than fifty documents are published here for the first time. The scope of the book clearly reflects the author's perseverance and thoroughness: he was able to include about seventy communities, the bulk of Regat Jewry. The reader will also find the maps, glossary and bilingual (Hebrew and Romanian) index of place names of great assistance. The subject and scope of Yaakov Geller's book and the information, much of it new, that it contains unquestionably constitute an important contribution to the study of East European Jewish communities in general and the Romanian community in particular. Dov LEVIN The Hebrew University

Calvin Goldscheider, Jewish Continuity and Change: Emerging Patterns in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. 195 pp. This book is overtly ideological in its purpose. It is directed against both the Zionist credo of the negation of the Diaspora and "the doom and gloom merchants" of American Jewry. As an alternative viewpoint it is a welcome contribution to the crucial debate on Jewish survival. The significance of U.S. Jewry for the Jewish people is overwhelming. It is the major component of world Jewry, numbering some 5.7 million persons and, far from vanishing, is the major focus of Jewish immigration in the world today. In recent years Russian Jews, Israelis, Iranians and others have supplemented the numbers of American Jews, as do thousands of converts (or Jews by choice) every

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year. This apparent attraction and vitality itself provokes the hostility of Zionistoriented writers. However, the real question is whether America is as good for the Jews collectively and historically as it certainly is for them individually and economically. This population is undoubtedly the wealthiest and secularly the best educated in Jewish history. Perhaps just as significant for Goldscheider's case is that Jewish Americans are also on average the best educated and richest ethnic group in the United States. This population of Jews is neither oppressed nor externally threatened. This is a new situation for the Diaspora, and it is from this perspective that Goldscheider tries to assess its survival potential. The source materials he uses are the 1965 and 1975 Boston studies conducted under the auspices of the combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. The great advantage of these studies in assessing the Jew of contemporary America is that they not only provide a time series for a local Jewish population but that they also allow comparison with the non-Jewish majority as that was surveyed simultaneously. The book's main emphasis is on socioeconomic patterns and inter-generational change. Its central thesis is that although differences between Jews and gentiles have narrowed, American Jews are distinctive in some important respects such as patterns of family, marriage and childbearing as well as social class, occupation, education and residence. This pattern is not regarded as a failure to integrate, but a freely chosen decision by the Jewish population to retain certain aspects of traditional Jewish values. Goldscheider portrays the genus American Jew as highly educated, professional or managerial in occupation, living in affluent suburbs or gentrified urban settings. It is a re-formed, concentrated homogeneous community, as socially cohesive as that of the immigrant generation. Goldscheider is particularly strong on the distaff side, being one of the few sociologists to really appreciate the social revolution that has swept over Jewish womanhood in the last two decades, particularly its professionalization. "As a result the educational differences between Jews and non-Jews have widened . . . educational concentration has resulted in networks and bonds among Jews." Goldscheider goes on to state that higher education is not a force for secularization, neither is it assimilatory nor does it divide the generations. So why are so many people so uneasy with current social patterns among American Jewry? Goldscheider would suggest that they are not closely enough attuned to these trends that are only now emerging. Moreover, they are alarmed by factors that are of an essentially different nature in this new Jewish society. For instance, moving to a non-Jewish neighborhood is no longer an escape from the community, nor does intermarriage state a desire to assimilate. Undoubtedly, the 1985 Boston study confirms some of Goldscheider's predictions. Boston Jewry has increased significantly in numbers. It is a young population with lots of young children as a result of the backlog of delayed births, which Goldscheider had predicted. The young Jewish intelligentsia of the colleges has become a salariat. Economic success is even more evident than in 1975. Yet, the rates of intermarriage and non-affiliation are increasing. As a social group, Jews

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may be better suited now to meet the challenge of modernity and adaptation in a dynamic and complex society through the informal mechanisms he outlines, but the worrisome part is that the organizational infrastructure is not as flexible or even malleable as the sum of individual Jews. Collective Jewish action and formal activities are the casualties whichever way one views the data. Moreover, can one really make the case for all of American Jewry from Boston's example, with its northeastern setting and its bias toward the educated elite? Certainly, this book should provoke further investigation, which will be good for social science. If it also halts demoralization and encourages innovation and outreach among communal and religious institutions, then the author may yet be in a position to assemble the evidence to confound his opponents. For the present, all is not yet lost with American Jewry. BARRY A. KOSMIN City University of New York

Calvin Goldscheider and Alan S. Zuckerman, The Transformation of the Jews. Chicago Series in the History of Judaism. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1984. 279 pp. This ambitious volume brings the combined perspectives of sociology and political science to bear on the modern social history of European, American and Israeli Jews. This is something of a breakthrough in the social sciences, for the study of the Jewish past has more commonly been located within the humanities. Because of this, perhaps, the authors sometimes take an overly combative tone. I find the authors' general argument quite persuasive: structural changes in Jewish society such as urban concentration, occupational shifts, political competition and conflict, population growth and migration should be viewed as the primary causal factors of behavioral and attitudinal change (pp. 81-93, 230-239). Ideologies legitimize rather than cause social change (pp. 63-65, 75). Modernization entails the creation of new or evolving bases of group cohesion and cannot, therefore, be said to lead inevitably to assimilation (pp. 109, 115, 185, 224). The last point in particular is most cogently argued with respect to American Jewry, possibly because here the authors are on firmer, more familiar ground. In a sense, the entire book may be read as an attempt to place the contention that American Jewry shows strong signs of sociopolitical vitality and group cohesion within a wider explanatory framework. The authors argue that continued ethnic particularity in a twentieth-century group is not a function of incomplete integration and modernization, but is rooted in a new socioeconomic pattern created under modern conditions. At the same time, they seek to demonstrate that changes in Jewish social, educational, occupational, religious and political behavior represent the operation in one social context of universal processes of change and are not to be understood as unique to Jewish history or determined by subjective, idiosyncratic forces (pp. 48-49, 60-61, 64, 81, 240-242).

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Bearing this in mind, it is surprising that the authors choose to dismiss the substantial body of Jewish social historical research that has accumulated over the past four decades. To state in 1984 that "most" scholars have "examined religious changes without regard to migrations; political changes in one country isolated from events in other nations; educational changes apart from occupational alterations"; or that "the Jewish community has been studied with little regard for the social, ethnic and political contexts in which Jews have lived," resulting in "a parochial focus on Jews divorced from the actual ways in which they have lived" (p. 4) conveys an erroneous and ill-informed view of contemporary Jewish historical scholarship. The authors cannot have taken seriously the pioneering work of those like Arthur Ruppin, Bernard Weinryb, Jacob Katz, Salo Baron and the late Shlomo Dov Goitein, all of whom approached the study of Jewish communities from points of view very similar to those the authors espouse and who provided much of the data for later research. One wonders, too, how carefully they have read the more recent works of Phyllis Cohen Albert, Todd Endelman, Zvi Gitelman and Paula Hyman, all of whom figure in this book's references. The fact that the authors lack direct mastery of the historical materials results in a large number of factual errors. There are minor but irritating and needless problems with names, dates and basic information. The Am Oylom movement is dubbed "Am Haoylam" [sic], meaning something quite different, apart from its eccentric spelling (p. 125); and vai [?] narod, which the authors claim is a label for Russian populism, is a repeated error (pp. 122, 123, 126). The abolition of the kahal in Russia in 1844 cannot be legitimately characterized as "policy change in the direction of Jewish legal rights" (p. 41), nor did the Wissenschaft des Judentums school of thought post-date the Reformers by a generation (pp. 69-70). The Palestine settlement group BILU cannot be glibly identified with the Russian revolutionary movement (p. 126), nor had Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) anything to do with the sovietization of nationality cultures (p. 150). The statement that, in the wake of the military reform of Alexander II, "all Jews could now join the army" (p. 57), betrays a breathtaking ingenuousness. A more fundamental weakness is the book's tendency to proceed from an axiomatic statement of theory to a depiction of the historical record that is only partially correct. Thus, the authors maintain that Jewish political parties and ideologies in Russia were the creation of Jewish students who absorbed the political culture of the university (p. 120). In fact, those who were most deeply involved in Russian politics at the universities were typically less likely to emerge later as Jewish political leaders. The model hardly fits such well-known cases as Smolenskin, Lilienblum or Ahad Ha-am—none of whom were drawn to nationalist ideas through a university experience—or the equally well-known phenomenon of the many so-called semi-intellectuals (former yeshivah students and the like) who had little formal exposure to intellectual trends but who led the political, educational and organizational activities of the new movements at the grass roots level (and sometimes higher). The imposed model leads the authors to ignore all this as well as the vital question of the movements' rank and file recruitment, and they are apparently unable to deal with the sometimes positive relationship between traditionalist Jews and early Jew-

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ish nationalism. Instead, we read about the ideological competition between the socialist Bund and the "student Zionists" (p. 135), a term that masks the essentials of the Zionist-Bundist political rivalry behind a social determinism of limited utility. The authors declare, "modernization begins from and is conditioned by existing structures. The modern world did not emerge suddenly with new scenery, players, and a new script" (p. 94). Yet, they argue that the intellectuals "brought political ideologies into the Jewish community . . . because they were excluded from the general society" (p. 126). Just how these doubly alienated individuals were able to function at all in Jewish society, what relation their programs had to the ongoing conflicts in the community between traditionalists and modernizers and what made many Jews come to regard the intellectuals as credible spokespersons are questions not addressed by this theory, although they are crucial to any analysis of Jewish political modernization. Considerable attention is paid to the effects of bureaucratic state-building on the status of the Jews, but there is, in fact, no discussion of the Jews' own gradual process of political modernization. As a result, there is a gap between descriptions of the pre-modern kahal as a political structure and the account of the post-1881 movements that seem to arrive, unbidden, from without. It is disappointing that the analysis of European Jewry as a political society is not pursued into the modern period. The authors' discussions of modern political organizations function, rather, to support the sociological argument that competing, vocal, constituency-building groups helped to maintain ethnic cohesion. A sustained, critical and comparative treatment of the modernization of Jewish communities is, as the authors correctly stress, one of the great needs of modern Jewish studies. In attempting to synthesize the historical data in just such a framework, Goldscheider and Zuckerman do not attempt the impossible. Such a synthesis of historical, political and sociological methods remains a valid undertaking and the importance of the authors' theoretical thesis would appear to warrant such a pooling of insight and research. Whether or not historians, sociologists and political scientists can develop a truly beneficial dialogue depends in large measure on the extent to which the methodological considerations of one partner to the discussion can be fulfilled without doing violence to the scholarly dictates of the others. This kind of open-minded and informed dialogue is, unfortunately, missing from The Transformation of the Jews. ELI LEDERHENDLER The Hebrew University Tel-Aviv University

Nancy L. Green, The Pletzl of Paris: Jewish Immigrant Workers in the Belle Époque. New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1986. 278 pp. Philip G. Nord, Paris Shopkeepers and the Politics of Resentment. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. 480 pp.

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Fin de siécle France, with its strange combination of ideological traditionalism and radical activism, continues to fascinate historians. The two works under review seek to challenge commonly held assumptions concerning elements of the population associated with the years of crisis in the Third Republic that culminated in the Dreyfus Affair. Whereas Philip Nord's study focuses on the response of Paris shopkeepers to the onset of modernization, Nancy Green's work examines the group that often bore the brunt of petit bourgeois frustrations: East European immigrant Jews. Thanks to the pioneering works of Rene Remond, Eugen Weber, Ze'ev Sternhell and Stephen Wilson, students of late nineteenth-century France have become familiar with the phenomenon of the radical or "revolutionary" right—a motley group of movements and leaders that, although drawing on deep-seated anti-republican sentiments in the French populace, borrowed much of their strategy and tactics from socialist and labor organizations. Appealing directly to the lower middle class, these new political groups are said to have manipulated confused elements of the French public who searched desperately for a political outlet to express their growing frustrations and feelings of impotence in the face of massive economic and social change. In their rejection of individualism and toleration, their trumpeting of extreme nationalism and their penchant for brutal violence, nationalist and antisemitic movements at the end of the century seem to represent both a clear rejection of France's revolutionary past and an ominous foreshadowing of its twentieth-century Vichyite future. In his book on Paris shopkeepers at the turn of the century, Nord calls for a more nuanced approach to the study of the role of the lower middle class in political movements. Rejecting simplistic analyses that have offered mono-causal explanations of the petit bourgeois revolt, the author convincingly argues that the association of Paris shopkeepers with militant nationalist movements developed gradually in response to a complex of factors arising from the general process of modernization—a severe economic crisis caused by France's inability to keep pace with industrialization and commercial innovation in the rest of the West, the rise of new social and economic forces in the French capital that threatened the continued existence of "le vieux Paris" and cultural changes resulting from the growth of a mass public eager for popular literature and news. Though often desperate and irrational, Paris shopkeepers were not simply passive tools of demagogic and power-hungry leaders of the New Right. Nord takes pains to point out that before the onset of the urban and economic transformations of the 1880s and 1890s, lowermiddle-class elements generally supported the ideals of radical republicanism and its calls for direct democracy, municipal socialism and tax reform. It was the class polarization of big business and big labor at the end of the century that made the concerns of artisans irrelevant and led shopkeepers and other elements of "le petit peuple" to search for new, more militant defenders of "la vraie France." Support by Paris shopkeepers for the radical right, Nord concludes, often dismissed as the grasping at straws by a hysterical and frightened petite bourgeoisie, must thus be viewed as a complex and evolving response to a general process of social, economic, political and cultural modernization. The Dreyfus Affair was only the last act of a prolonged tragedy, the doomed struggle "to defend a dying small-owner

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world against the forces and institutions destined to inherit power in the emergent corporate world of the twentieth century" (p. 463). In his study, Nord argues that Paris shopkeepers often mistook symptoms for the cause. In attacking "la juiverie" specifically, they were able to personalize and condense a complex set of factors and forces over which they had no control into an easily identifiable and seemingly controllable enemy. The intensification of antisemitism in fin de siècle France was directly connected with the influx of thousands of East European Jews between 1880 and 1914. To the stereotype of Rothschild, the unscrupulous capitalist, the ominous and shadowy image of the alien revolutionary could now be added. In contrast to previous studies of immigrant Jews in France, Nancy Green's work attempts to examine the development of the immigrant Jewish community in Paris in response to the "pull" of a relatively favorable economic climate in turn-of-thecentury France, and not merely in terms of the "push" of persecution and economic deprivation in Russia. In addition, the author insists that East European Jews in the French capital defined themselves more in reference to conditions in their workplace than to the attitudes and behavior of the native French Jewish community. In thus rejecting standard historiographical approaches to migration and settlement in modern history, Green hopes to incorporate the study of Jewish communities into the general social and economic context in which they lived and worked. Green's effort is to be welcomed as an important corrective to the insularity of some modern Jewish historical investigations. By providing new and interesting insights into the desperate social and economic conditions facing newly arrived immigrants in the West, the author helps to dispel much of the romanticism that has grown up around the immigrant Jewish experience. Her detailed examination of working and living conditions among the so-called "Jewish proletariat" is revealing and effectively points up the need to examine class divisions within modern Jewish communities. Green also convincingly demonstrates the value of crosscultural studies of immigrant settlement and accommodation as well as comparative studies of different Jewish immigrations. Despite the many strengths of her study, however, Green's work is marred by overstatement and ideological tendentiousness. In attempting to place the East European Jewish experience in Paris in the context of immigrant and French labor conditions as a whole, the author only succeeds in demonstrating how different immigrant Jews were from both other foreign-born and native workers. Unlike Polish and Spanish immigrants, East European Jews generally could not return to their homelands, were under-employed, were religiously separate from the majority society and settled in urban areas where they found jobs in the distinctive "Jewish" trades of clothing and textiles. Unlike most of the French working class, the "Jewish proletariat" was actually comprised largely of artisans and petit bourgeois elements who dreamed of becoming patrons rather than remain workers. Finally, though Green is right in pointing up the bitter hostility that existed between the largely bourgeois native Jewish community and the immigrants, her overemphasis on socioeconomic tensions, which are said to mirror the general class conflict in France at the end of the last century, leads the author to ignore cultural and religious conflicts that reflected the immigrants' continued commitment to, and concern

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with, Jewish identity and community. (The problem stems in large part from Green's over-reliance on information drawn from Der idisher arbayter, a militant immigrant paper of the period.) In attempting to counter what she regards as the parochialism and insularity of previous studies of the immigrant Jewish community, Green never clearly succeeds in defining the appropriate general context that she claims ultimately explains the immigrant Jewish experience. As the author herself admits, but does not clearly reflect in her work, a sophisticated approach to the study of East European Jewish settlement in the West must steer a middle course between specificity and generalization by recognizing the complex weave of ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic and political commitments and referents that defined the immigrant Jewish experience. Though the Dreyfus Affair has been eclipsed by the terrible rise of fascism and the events of the Final Solution, scholarly interest in fin-de-siècle France remains as lively as ever. As both Nord and Green demonstrate, perhaps the key to the continued fascination with the crisis of the Third Republic among both general and Jewish historians lies in the insights it offers about the benefits and costs of modernization in an era of radical transformation in the lives of both Frenchmen and immigrant Jews. It is a subject worthy of further discussion and investigation. DAVID WEINBERG Bowling Green State University

Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. 880 pp. $22.50. Vasilii Grossman, Na evreiskie temy (Vol. 1); Shimon Markish (ed.), Primer Vasiliia Grossmana (Vol. 2). Jerusalem: Biblioteka-Aliia, 1985. 532 pp.

One of the most remarkable features of the Gorbachev regime has been the publication of works which would never have seen the light of day in the Soviet Union a few years ago. A most extreme example is Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate which has just been brought out in serial form in the literary journal Oktiabr'. It was written during the 1950s and the author died in 1964. Since that time bits and pieces of the novel have been appearing in Russian-language emigre publications in the West, where it was finally published in full in 1980. The English translation, reviewed here, came out well before the Russian publication in the Soviet Union. The novel covers the period of the siege of Stalingrad in the fall of 1942 up to the Soviet victory in the spring of 1943. Nearly nine hundred pages in length, the novel, although limited in time frame, is cosmic in its scope of characters and plot lines. (The incomplete list of chief characters provided at the end of the book is itself eight pages long.) Within the confines of the book are representatives of various segments of Soviet—and German—society, both real and fictitious. In spite of its complex nature, Life and Fate is a very readable novel, full of human interest, which, with occasional lapses, sustains the reader's attention till the end. Vasily Grossman was a writer well known to the Soviet reading public in the

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1940s and 1950s. He had already published fiction when the Second World War began and, during the war, he was a correspondent for the Soviet army newspaper, Krasnaia zvezda, writing from the front. He also published articles in the Soviet Yiddish paper Eynikayt. His first novel on Stalingrad, arising out of his own firsthand experience, Za pravoe delo (For the Just Cause), was published in instalments in the literary journal, Novyi mir, in the autumn of 1952. Originally greeted with a degree of approbation, it became the object of hostile attacks in 1953 that went on until a few weeks after Stalin's death in March. During the subsequent thaw, Grossman was already writing the sequel, Life and Fate, and followed that up with a shorter work, Forever Flowing, which has not yet been published in the Soviet Union. In 1960, on completing Life and Fate, Grossman approached the journal Znamia in the hope that it could be accepted for publication. Not only was his novel rejected but all the typed copies of the manuscript were confiscated by the KGB. The writer died brokenhearted a few years later, unable to rework his novel. According to Shimon Markish, in his highly interesting essay on Grossman, the source of our version is a microfilm copy of the original—made before the confiscation—that was later sent abroad. Had somebody thus not shown remarkable foresight, the novel would probably have been lost forever. Although it can be read as an independent work, it is very definitely a sequel to Za pravoe delo. Freer stylistically, more outspoken politically and liberated in tone, Life and Fate, nevertheless, has its roots in the earlier novel; most of its characters were introduced there and often appear without explanation or background in the second book. This presents problems for the reader unfamiliar with the personages and plot so well known to the author. A second difficulty is that, having had his novel taken away from him before the publication process began, Grossman was never able to put the finishing touches to it. Besides numerous infelicities, there are also a number of loose ends, parts of the plot that are not properly resolved. Life and Fate, although ostensibly about the great battle for Stalingrad, in fact is a novel about the human condition. The book encompasses a number of microcosms, each reflecting some aspect of life. This is a technique familiar to the reader of Soviet novels. A number of locations provide the setting for various sub-plots: a Soviet labor camp, the scientific research institute, the ghetto, the train to the death camp, and the German prisoner of war (POW) camp. Whereas the train and ghetto serve as vehicles for his condemnation of fascism, the labor camp, the research institute and even the POW camp (through the relations among the Soviet prisoners) are all used deftly by Grossman to express his basic opposition to the Soviet system. Grossman manages to convey not only the pettiness and cruelty of certain individuals, but the supreme, innate decency of which man is also capable. This is his message—despite the callousness, corruption and outright cruelty that reached such a peak in both the Nazi and Soviet regimes of his day, a residual humanity still asserts itself. In his devastating criticism of the Soviet State, Grossman delineates a system that has repeatedly destroyed its best men. One of the saddest examples of this syndrome reveals itself inside the German POW camp where Soviet prisoners are being held. Even here the old Bolsheviks and party members seek to retain the discipline of

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class and position that was theirs before their capture. It is within this context that the iniquities of the system are seen to perpetuate themselves—from habit and without reason. One of the finest men in the camp is sent to his death at Buchenwald at the instigation of the party members among the prisoners because he was too individualistic and too popular. As in his earlier Stalingrad novel, Za pravoe delo, Grossman uses the art of Aesopean criticism, describing evils within the Nazi system in such a way that no intelligent Soviet reader could fail to see the Stalinist parallel. But where in the earlier novel Grossman confined himself to this form of criticism, in Life and Fate he comes out with straightforward condemnations expressed quite directly—attacks that do not spare the very essence of Soviet ideology, nor even the great Lenin himself. Within the suffocating atmosphere of the Soviet Union, Grossman sees even war as a liberating experience. It provides the occasion for the breaking down of barriers, for informality, for ignoring authority. The archetypical case in the book is Captain Grekov, in charge of a small group of snipers in house 6/1 in besieged Stalingrad. He is the example of the free spirit who only comes into his own in the chaotic, even anarchic, situation of the war—untrammeled by caste or party membership, Grekov proves himself a courageous leader and dies a hero's death. Although the novel is about the war and Soviet society in general, Grossman assigns a central place to his Jewish characters and the Jewish question. This is not surprising, given his own wartime experience and his active part in collecting factual material on Jewish martyrdom and heroism for the ill-fated Black Book, which was to have been published in the Soviet Union but has not yet seen the light of day there. In Life and Fate, the attitude toward Jews in many ways constitutes a litmus test. There are three principal Jewish characters, each living in a different circle: Shtrum, the physicist, in his home and laboratory; Shtrum's mother, who writes a poignant letter to her son from the ghetto shortly before her death; and Sonia Levinton, an army doctor who is captured and dies in a gas chamber. The two women exhibit extraordinary bravery and humanity. Shtrum, more removed from his origins, is drawn to his mother and longs to live up to her standards. (His last words in the book, when he has suddenly come to see decency as the ultimate imperative, are "Maybe I do have enough strength. Your strength, Mother.") Two examples must suffice to illustrate the moral centrality of Jews and the Jewish question in the novel. It is his discovery that he and his fellow prisoners are working on a construction site that is to end up as a gas chamber that prompts one man, a former Tolstoyan, a sort of holy fool, to argue It's wrong to make out that only the people in power are guilty, that you yourself are only an innocent slave. I'm helping to build an extermination camp; I'm responsible before the people who are to be gassed. But I'm free. I can say "No!" What power can stop me if I have the strength not to be afraid of extinction?

And it is this man, Ikonnikov-Morzh, who refuses to work on the project and is executed. Sonia Levinton, the doctor, befriends and comforts a small Jewish boy on the

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long train ride to the concentration camp where they are put to death. As they enter the camp, an officer asks if there are any doctors in the group. Though Sonia could step out of the line and thus save her life, she chooses to remain silent and stay with the child until the end. This act of personal heroism takes place in a novel filled with opportunists and compromisers. Evil evinced toward Jews where equality was ostensibly the watchword—the way in which Shtrum's mother is treated by her non-Jewish neighbors as soon as the enemy appears; the refusal to permit certain Jewish staff members to return to their laboratory in Moscow after the turning point in the war—serves to illustrate the shallowness of Soviet society. As a novel written in the Soviet Union during the 1950s, Life and Fate, if not unique, is truly exceptional. Grossman took a classic Soviet subject—the Second World War, Stalingrad, described its progress in moving terms that are in many ways reminiscent of the vocabulary and views of earlier published Soviet works; and presented certain "typical" characters—workers, scientists, old Bolsheviks, brave soldiers—but with a difference! The novel is baldly frank about Soviet life, its inequalities, squalor, drunkenness, even describing the grossest flaws in high Soviet (non-fictional) officers. With the turning tide of the war, there is no end of the misery; on the contrary, the arrests continue, the poverty is appalling, problems mount up. Only the small joys of personal relationships remain to lift the gloom occasionally. This is not an uplifting novel about a glorious victory, but the saga of a hard-working and wornout people who have suffered much and will suffer more. Given the general indictment of the Soviet system and of the Soviet leadership as well as its frontal attack on the very foundations of the system, it is a wonder that Grossman actually thought that he would see it published in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Indeed, when Suslov, the leading party ideologist at the time, spoke to Grossman, he reportedly told him that the novel could surely not be published in the Soviet Union for another two or three hundred years. In fact, the Soviet publication of this outspoken novel could not have been predicted even a year before it came out. Shimon Markish has devoted a two-volume work to the Jewish themes in Grossman's works. The first volume and part of the second contain excerpts from Grossman's writings, including, of course, the novel under discussion here. Most of the second volume is taken up with a long and highly interesting essay by Markish on Grossman; as probably the largest independent work on the writer, it should be published in English. It provides Grossman's biography in outline, albeit almost bereft of personal details, and it surveys his life's output. In the essay, Markish points out the interrelation between certain of Grossman's works, specifically the (non-fictional) Black Book, Life and Fate and Forever Flowing as well as Za pravoe delo. He contends, in fact, that the moving letter sent by Anna Shtrum from the ghetto to her son, which is so central to Life and Fate, had actually first been placed in Za pravoe delo and then removed before its publication in Novyi mir. He discusses at length the principal themes of freedom and good in Life and Fate and the centrality of the Jewish motifs. Where one might disagree with Markish is in his analysis that suggests that the

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last two novels represent a new, or second, phase in Grossman's development. Markish refers to changes in his attitudes and clear differences between earlier and later works without actually taking into account the conditions under which Grossman had to write. How can one compare the style and content of Za pravoe delo, written in the dark days of Stalinism, and that of Life and Fate and Forever Flowing written during the thaw? Surely, many of these differences reflect the change in political climate rather than a change of heart. Furthermore, whereas Markish refers to Grossman's sensitivity to official attack, it should have been noted that he, in fact, stood his ground remarkably in the face of the onslaught, refusing under prolonged pressure to cave in to the demands of the political-literary establishment early in 1953. Certainly, though, Life and Fate, like Forever Flowing, does form an important contribution to the growing body of Soviet literature written in an open and, indeed, recklessly frank vein. Based on historical facts, it combines the truth of history with the honesty of concerned fiction. EDITH ROGOVIN FRANKEL The Hebrew University

Peter Hanak (ed.), Zsidokerdés—asszimildcio, antiszemitizmus, Tanulmányok a zsidókérdesröl a huszadik századi Magyarorszdgon (The Jewish Question— Assimilation, Antisemitism, Essays on the Jewish Question in Twentieth Century Hungary). Budapest: Gondolat, 1984. Medvetdnc (Bear Dance, a Quarterly). Budapest, nos. 2-3, 1985. Robert Simon (ed.), Zsidokerdes Kelet-es Kozep-Europdban. (Fejlodes-tanulmdnyok) (Jewish Problems in Eastern and Central Europe, in Studies on Development). Budapest: University of Arts and Sciences/Lorand Eötvös, 1985. In Europe's Communist-ruled states, the Jewish question has been, and still is, a sensitive subject. This is also the case in Hungary, where there are more Jews (one hundred thousand) than in any other Eastern bloc country (apart from the Soviet Union). Until 1956 the topic was taboo in Budapest. But several years after the antiCommunist, anti-Soviet national upheaval of 1956 policies of "liberalization" made possible, among other things, the discussion of Jewish matters—including antisemitism—in Hungary. Intensive research into the antecedents and the implementation of the Holocaust in the country began about forty years after the tragedy of Hungarian Jewry, and numerous articles on the subject appeared in the press. This interest is reflected in the two anthologies and the quarterly reviewed here. The Jewish Question—Assimilation, Antisemitism was published by one of the big official publishing houses, Gondolat. The editor of this volume, Peter Hanak, is a distinguished historian. Imre Pozsgay, who wrote the preface, is a high-ranking political official. Pozsgay unequivocally supports the assimilation of those Jews

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who, as he puts it, "spontaneously identify with Magyardom" and who, nonetheless, need not deny their origins or forget their ancestral values. The anthology begins with a condensed version of a remarkable product of older Hungarian political literature. In 1917 Peter Agoston, a socialist and a jurist, published an antisemitic critique of Jewry arguing that antisemitism was caused by the Jews themselves. The periodical Huszadik század (Twentieth Century), representing the faction that would lead the "bourgeois" Hungarian revolution of October 1918, reacted to Agoston's book with a sensational opinion poll. It solicited the views of sixty prominent personalities—including both philosemitic and antisemitic nonJews as well as religious, agnostic, Zionist and assimilationist Jews. Eighteen of the sixty original responses are reprinted in this 1984 anthology, but they are edited to omit radically antisemitic statements. Thus, the antisemitism of those days is somewhat blurred and its virulence understated. Nevertheless, the selection quite accurately reflects the inquiry of 1917. This is followed by an essay by Erik Molnar, the renowned Marxist historian, first published in 1946. Molnar admitted that a "Jewish question" existed in postwar Hungary, but he called it a relic of capitalism. He saw two possible solutions to the problem: the reactionary route of Zionism and the progressive path of socialism. This brief and rather simplistic essay precedes an extensive article by a wellknown populist philosopher, István Bibo, originally published in 1947. Bibo analyzes the steps leading up to the tragedy of 1944 with deep compassion and pays particular attention to the ignominious role played by so many non-Jewish Hungarians. He also points to those objective factors that tended to increase Judeophobia (what Ze'ev Jabotinsky called "the antisemitism of things"). Bibo sought a humane solution within the framework of a genuine democracy, pleading for the "honest recognition of the reality and the possibility of assimilation on the one hand, and the simultaneous acceptance of separate Jewish consciousness on the other.'' Concluding essays by György Száraz and Peter Hanák suggest that the Jewish question still remains open at the end of the twentieth century. In their view, the last word has not yet been said on the subject of Jewish assimilation and distinctiveness. The second anthology, Jewish Problems in Eastern and Central Europe, has had a peculiar fate. It was not published by an official press but by a scholarly collective, some of whose members were considered dissidents. Delivery to the bookstores was stopped soon after the book appeared; thus it was virtually banned, although what displeased the vigorous (though officially non-existent) Budapest censors remains unclear. Robert Simon, the book's editor, devoted more than half the book to a discussion of Jewish emancipation and antisemitism in East and Central European countries outside Hungary. The selections are drawn from published works by such authors as Abram Leon, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Hal Draper, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky and Leszek Kolakowski. The first essay specifically on Hungary appears on page 293: selections from Peter Agoston's book of 1917. Here, too, passages are quoted from the Huszadik szdzad anthology of the same year. Six

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of the nine statements published in Simon's volume also appear in Hanák's, though Simon allows the original quotations to stand unabridged. In addition, Simon uses material from William O. McCagg's Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modern Hungary; an article of 1920 by the Liberal (later Social Democrat) politician, Pal Szende, that speculated about a secret alliance between his antisemitic contemporaries and "Jewish banking capital" as well as a significant essay, "Past Imperfect—Today's Hungarian-Jewish Reality" by Peter Vardy, who now lives in Holland. Vardy reviews literary and scholarly attempts since 1945 that portray the situation of Hungarian Jewish survivors, both in Hungary and elsewhere. Although Vardy claims inability to examine areas closed off to scholarly enquiry ("white spots"), he acquits himself admirably. His bibliography is particularly useful. Medvetdnc is the sociological quarterly of Budapest University's Communist Youth Organization. The 1985 double issue (2-3) commemorates the anniversary of the Holocaust and contains five contributions on Jewish topics. Victor Karády's "The Situation of Hungarian Jewry at the Time of the Antisemitic Legislation" provides a detailed description of the Jewish population from May 1938 until the Nazi occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944. The Hungarian version of this excellent study, based on a wealth of statistical material, is slightly marred by the mistranslation of pertinent terms. Maria M. Kovács has a short but interesting note on efforts made by Hungarian lawyers on behalf of Jewish colleagues. László Váradi concisely surveys the attempts of foreign diplomats to save Budapest Jews. Maria Schmidt reports on Jewish rescue efforts in Hungary. The title of her essay, "Rescue or Treason," refers to the controversy over Rudolf Kastner, to which she devotes a great deal of her discussion. This is a well-documented, objective and comprehensive presentation, and it convincingly demolishes the infamous charges against Kastner. Twelve case studies are grouped under the heading "How I Learned I Was a Jew." In contemporary Hungary many Jews try to keep their own Jewishness a secret or do not acknowledge it, even to their children. The children grow up knowing nothing of their origins, but many sooner or later confront their past. The twelve case histories seem reasonably typical of such confrontations. In some instances the attempt to hide Jewishness is thwarted by virulent antisemitism among schoolchildren. It should be noted that other Hungarian periodicals, too, publish articles on Jewish subjects. The respected Budapest literary monthly Kortdrs (The Contemporary) printed an article by Károly Vörös on Jews in Budapest from 1849 to 1918 in its issue of December 1986. The essay is well informed and well documented and deals with the close correlation between Jewish assimilation and gentile antiSemitism. A literary magazine may be an unlikely place to encounter such a specialized historical study, but such occurrences are not unique. In a 1985 volume of Acta Historiae Literarum Hungaricarum, volume 22, published by the Institute for Hungarian Literature of Szeged University, the friendship between two poets—the Jew, Zoltán Somlyó and the non-Jew, Dezsö Kosztolányi—is documented. Kosztolanyi was an eminent Hungarian lyric poet who admired and sponsored many

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Jewish colleagues. Yet after the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 was overthrown he wrote a series of viciously antisemitic columns for a nationalist newspaper. The essay on the subject, by Sandor Zsoldos, shows why the episode was an aberration—and was indeed considered as such by a repentant Kosztolanyi. Letters and comments by Somlyó and by Milan Fust, another prominent Jewish writer, are quoted in Kosztolanyi's defense. DENIS SILAGI Munich

Miriam Joyce Haron, Palestine and the Anglo-American Connection. New York: Peter Lang, American University Studies, Series IX, vol. 17, 1986. 210 pp.

Miriam Joyce Haron begins by informing us that whereas the Palestine question has received considerable attention from scholars, "the Anglo-American aspect of the problem has been neglected." However, the author refers in her bibliography (though rarely in her footnotes) to several books that have done just that, and this reviewer, at least, had the utmost difficulty in discovering just what Haron adds to our state of knowledge in this supposedly neglected area. It is to be hoped that other works in this University Series are not as illiterate as this production, a sorry fact for which both author and copyeditor are responsible. Better syntax might be expected of high school students. Haron has an excruciating habit of dropping the definite article, and her prose is dotted with such gems as, "Jews were angried [sic] by the retreat from partition" (p. 99). The following is a typical example of Haron's powers of historical analysis, "Already in 1947 the British government had given India to the Indians, Greece and Turkey to the United States, and Palestine to the United Nations" (p. 128). And what is one to make of the following, "The British government accepted the Jewish state, granted de facto recognition, but doubted Jewish good intentions—a gentlemanly sort of anti-Semitism" (p. 148)? Are we now to add "the doubting of good intentions" to our definition of antisemitism? The author's use of archives and secondary sources is uneven. Zionist newsletters are frequently cited as authority for government statements or policy; the last two chapters, which wander aimlessly through the diplomacy of Israel's first two years of statehood, rely almost exclusively on British documents. (American views are derived from letters received by the British Foreign Office from a member of the American embassy staff in Tel-Aviv.) And above all, given the title of this book, several key issues are skimmed over superficially in a few lines. Thus, for example, the clash between the White House and the State Department over recognition of Israel in May 1948, the Bernadotte plan of September 1948 and its fate at the United Nations, and the Tripartite Agreement of 1950—perhaps the crowning glory of Anglo-American collaboration in the Middle East—all receive short shrift.

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Perhaps this volume is aimed at the high school market. But it would be doing them a disservice to recommend it as such. MICHAEL J. COHEN Bar-IIan University

Donald L. Herman, The Latin American Community of Israel. New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1984. 150 pp.

The 1983 Israel General Population Census found some forty thousand persons of Latin American origin living in Israel who were spread throughout the country and in all walks of life, with some members of the group in high-ranking positions in politics and the economy. A study of this significant community has long been needed, as the few previous works have touched on the subject only superficially. Donald Herman's work is, therefore, a welcome contribution. His volume is divided into three parts: an introduction (pp. 1-30), based on secondary sources, describes the Latin American milieu in general. This is followed by a concise exposition (pp. 30-87) of Herman's own research and by an appendix (pp. 89-136) that analyzes data compiled by the Israel Institute of Applied Social Research. The author's research deals with the Latin Americans' reasons for immigration (pp. 31-52) and their subsequent experiences in Israel (pp. 53-87). Assisted by tables and lists, he probes the motivations of several hundred respondents in leaving their countries of origin and for making their home in Israel. Their prior expectations regarding government aid are compared with their absorption experience. He summarizes and evaluates various aspects of their integration in Israel—employment, housing, geographic distribution, knowledge of Hebrew, social life, organizational and political affiliations, the hardships they faced and their degree of satisfaction with their new lives as compared with their lives before immigrating to Israel and in relation to their desire to leave. The author also provides insights into the attitudes of Israelis toward Latin Americans as compared with their attitudes toward other groups of immigrants. Herman's data were obtained from 150 personal interviews and from the responses of 443 other Latin American immigrants to a questionnaire administered for him in 1978 and 1982 by the Israeli Institute of Applied Social Research. The institute also surveyed the response to Latin Americans of 504 native-born Israelis. There are some serious methodological flaws in this work. All of the Latin American respondents were deliberately chosen from urban areas, but this is nowhere justified. The 1978 group of respondents produced a skewed sample that was 63 percent female; one therefore wonders if there are other undisclosed biases. Herman divided his informants into two broad categories: those who had immigrated before 1975 and those who arrived after that date, but he does not provide a reasonable explanation for this cutoff point. The Yom Kippur War (October 6, 1973), which coincided almost exactly with the reelection of Peron as president of

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Argentina (September 23) and with the military coup of Pinochet in Chile (September 11), might have been a better choice. If a comparison between different groups is to be sought, the pre-1975 group ought surely to have been subdivided into a pre-1967 and a post-1967 group, as the immigrants who came after the Six Day War were faced by a new reality. The author neither provides the reader with the text of his questionnaire nor does he elaborate on the specific information gathered in the 150 interviews he conducted personally (apparently without written notes). He refers to these conversations only occasionally in order to corroborate or to contradict the questionnaire data. Specific information might have been of much interest here as the interviewees included many former members of Argentinian guerrilla movements (the Peronist Montoneros and the Trotskyite ERP). The tables and lists do not give numerical totals— only percentages—and we, therefore, cannot know whether and how the interviews have been tabulated. In addition, there are some unfortunate oversights. In describing the economic position of Latin American immigrants (pp. 54-56), income is cited in shekels without their dollar equivalents and without comparing these wage levels with the national averages for the period studied; elsewhere, the residential distribution of the Latin American population is discussed according to the census data from 1972. But Herman does not attempt to update this information or to compare it with the geographic distribution of his informants—most of whom immigrated after 1972. Nevertheless, Herman provides some insight into the views and feelings of the Latin Americans about their immigration experience. The vast majority of all respondents felt certain about their permanence in the country, expressed satisfaction with their lives in Israel, used Hebrew in their daily lives and, though socializing mainly among themselves, did not form close-knit neighborhood communities (pp. 58-74). Most significant are Herman's findings about their motivations for immigration. Asked to list three main reasons and secondary influencing factors, the respondents produced a clear hierarchy of considerations, beginning with those that reflected "a positive approach toward Israel and Jewishness," both their own and their children's. "Push factors" in their countries of origin, including antisemitism, entered into their considerations, but only as a lower priority. Apparently none of the informants listed antisemitism specifically among the three main reasons for their emigration. Only 10 percent among the pre-1975 group and 19 percent among the post-1975 group listed it among the influencing factors (pp. 39-45). This contrasts sharply with the image many Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora have of Jewish life in Latin America. Herman himself, in describing the Latin American milieu, devotes twenty out of twenty-six pages of his discussion to antisemitism and less than one page to the positive features of Jewish life in those communities that, as we observe from the data, were decisive in prompting the Latin Americans to immigrate to Israel. The brevity of the discussion and the meager sources cited in this case reflect a failure to make adequate use of the existing literature. Valuable demographic studies of Latin American Jewry such as those of Sergio DellaPergola and U. O. Schmelz are not even mentioned. The appendix to the book provides a highly professional presentation of the data

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from the survey conducted by the Israel Institute of Applied Social Research relating to 168 respondents who immigrated after 1975. Despite its shortcomings, Donald Herman's study adds to our understanding of the immigration of Latin Americans to Israel. But the Latin American community of Israel still remains to be studied. HAIM AVNI The Hebrew University

Hannah Herzog, 'Adatiut politit—dimui mul meziut (Political Ethnicity—The Image and the Reality). Tel-Aviv: Yad Tabenkin/Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1984. In the last two Israeli general elections "ethnic lists" gained representation in the Knesset for the first time since 1951. This phenomenon, which was accompanied by an increasing correlation between Jewish ethnicity and support for "non-ethnic" parties, reemphasized the importance of the Sephardi-Ashkenazi dichotomy in the Israeli political system. Hannah Herzog's Political Ethnicity—The Image and the Reality, is a major contribution to the investigation of these questions. The title of the book is, however, slightly misleading as it deals mainly with a "sociohistorical analysis of the 'ethnic' lists to the Asefat hanivharim (Delegates Assembly) and the Knesset" as is made clear by the subtitle, rather than with the question of political ethnicity in general. Herzog distinguishes between two main types of Jewish ethnic groups: Yemenites, on the one hand, and Sephardi groups in general, on the other. This distinction derives from the relative success of a pair of parties, one of each type, on several occasions. Thus, in 1925 the Histadrut hasephardim gained 7.2 percent of the valid votes and the Hitahdut hateimanim was supported by 8.8 percent of the voters in the elections to Asefat hanivharim. In the first two Knesset elections the same parties were the only Jewish ethnic lists to break through the 1 percent electoral threshold. Given the disappearance of these groups as well as the failure of other ethnic lists to cross this "cut-off point" in ensuing elections, Hannah Herzog repeatedly claims that such organizations actually failed. Nevertheless, one should remember that since 1973 four or five such lists competed in each Knesset election. In 1984 these five parties combined gained 5.2 percent of the vote, which constituted the highest share of the popular vote received by Sephardi groups since 1931. Herzog demonstrates convincingly that most ethnic lists were created in response to the Israeli experience. Thus, their leaders were generally not members of the traditional elites but rather younger politicians raised and educated in Israel. She also shows that the political success of these groupings was not necessarily associated with electoral achievements but rather with developments in other political groups that had little to do with any relevant variables. This raises an important question that Herzog prefers not to answer in her present impressive study: Did the participation of ethnic parties contribute to the success of

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Sephardi politicians in these elected bodies? The answer to this question is not at all simple. On the one hand, in recent elections we find the relative popularity of ethnic parties such as Shas and Tami but, on the other hand, a number of members of "non-ethnic" parties, who had begun their careers in less successful ethnic groupings, were also elected to the Knesset. Two prominent examples of the latter type are Avner Shaki of the National Religious Party and Charlie Bitton of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality. In addition, there has been an increasingly noticeable trend to include more Sephardi candidates in the various lists at recent elections. Thus, of the first twenty-four places in the Likud's list in 1977 only two were Sephardi. Yet, this number increased rapidly, so that by 1984 the proportion of Likud Sephardi Knesset members was almost identical to the proportion of such members in the Alignment list. Furthermore, a number of young Sephardi politicians today occupy senior positions in both the Likud and the Alignment. Although Hannah Herzog did not closely investigate the ethnic support for the two leading parties, the last few pages of her study are devoted to a discussion of this question and to much broader and general questions of political ethnicity. The absence of empirical data and the brevity of the discussion render these conclusions somewhat less convincing than the rest of her study. Herzog's volume is based on her Ph.D. dissertation, which did not cover the 1981 and 1984 elections. Although she updated it before publication, clearly her hypotheses were formulated before the results of these elections were known. They might have been somewhat different had they taken these elections into account. Even so, her research constitutes an authoritative study that should be recommended to every scholar of the Israeli political system. AVRAHAM DlSKIN

The Hebrew University

Jan Karski, The Great Powers and Poland, 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta. Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1985. xvi + 697 pp. The name of Jan Karski will probably be most readily associated by readers of this book with the courier from the Polish underground who in November 1942 brought to London an eyewitness report on the murder of Polish Jewry by the Nazis. Before the exigencies of war had thrust him into his underground role, however, Karski had been preparing for a career in the Polish diplomatic service. Following his departure from Poland at the end of 1942, he was enlisted by his exile government in the service of Polish diplomatic aims in the United States. He remained in the United States after the war, taking his doctorate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he has served as a professor in the School of Foreign Service, specializing in East European affairs, since 1952. The book under discussion thus represents for its author far more than an exercise in historical scholarship: it is rather the distillation of a lifetime's labor, the final

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embodiment of what Karski set out to do at the beginning of his career—to put the case of the Second Polish Republic before the world in as concise, forthright and convincing fashion as possible. He has done so admirably. The book is comprehensive, discussing Poland's relations with Germany, France, Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second, yet at the same time its discussions, despite the volume's length, are terse. The presentation of issues and events is simple, accurate, and straightforward, with complex negotiations and exchanges boiled down and set forth in a fashion that is both reliable and easy to follow. On the other hand, this very simplicity points up the book's fundamental weakness as a piece of scholarship. The terseness of the narrative is made possible mainly because Karski tends to present the issues faced by Polish diplomacy as clear-cut. The men who made Polish foreign policy, as Karski depicts them, were all fine, upright, honest people inspired by the highest ideals of patriotism and love of liberty. The powers with whom Poland was compelled to deal in the international arena, in contrast, were, so Karski assures us, guided by baser motives. "Only once," he observes, "at the Versailles Peace Conference, did a Great Power, the United States, throw its support in behalf of Poland for other reasons than its own interests." At all other times, he laments, "Poland was not much more than an object in the policies of the Great Powers." This much is undoubtedly true, but the plaintive tone that seemingly stands behind it bespeaks a naivete unbecoming a professional student of international affairs. Indeed, the entire work is cast in a language of moral absolutes that reflects the innocence of a bygone era. Insofar as this attitude leads to the conclusion that "Poland was unable to play an independent and effective role in the international arena, regardless of the merits or demerits of its policies," the book takes on a quality more apologetic than academic. As a result, it seems pointless to criticize the shortcomings of the book's scholarly apparatus or to take issue with the author's handling of specific details; such criticism is of importance mainly to the specialist, but the book will in any case be of little use to him. The book will be extremely useful, though, for uninitiated students interested in a basic exposition of the major events in the diplomatic history of the Second Polish Republic as well as for those seeking primary evidence of the manner in which a loyal Pole looks on them from the perspective of the 1980s. DAVID ENGEL Tel-Aviv University

Jacob Katz, The Darker Side of Genius: Richard Wagner's Anti-Semitism. Hanover and London: University Press of New England for Brandeis University Press, 1986. xii + 158 pp. (German edn.) Richard Wagner. Vorbote des Antisemitismus. (Eine Veröffentlichung des Leo Baeck Instituts.) Königstein/Ts.: Jüdischer Verlag-Athenäum, 1985, 216 pp.

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Wagner presents a continuing problem of evaluation for critics and historians of the late twentieth century, indeed, for anyone sensitive to the moral-political dilemmas bequeathed by the crime of Nazism—and particularly if one happens to like Wagner's music. Although an artistic and political radical in the 1840s, Wagner— from the anonymous publication of "Das Judenthum in der Musik" in 1850 until his death—was consistently antisemitic in his philosophical outlook. Conceiving musical productions of obvious power and grandeur, he identified himself with a general credo that was thoroughly obnoxious. Moreover, particularly from the 1890s, his cultural authority was successfully appropriated by an increasingly racialist radical right that found no difficulty in coopting his egotistical and grandiose cultural nationalism into its own political-cultural projects. Ideologically, institutionally and biographically, the lines between Wagnerism and Nazism are easy enough to establish. For Nazis and (especially since 1945) anti-Nazis alike, the racialist content of his legacy was beyond dispute. But how far should the artistic and ideological significance of Wagner's career be conflated and how far can they be uncoupled? How far is Wagner's musical stature compromised by his antisemitism? Without exactly answering these more basic questions (which he implies are beyond the historian's more modest brief), Katz sets out to specify the biographic and political significance of Wagner's antisemitism. Partly, this involves clarifying Wagner's relationships with, and attitudes toward, particular individuals (e.g., Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Giacomo Meyerbeer during the earlier formative stages of Wagner's career and the various Jewish associates in the heyday of Bayreuth—Carl Tausig, Joseph Rubinstein and, of course, Hermann Levi) and partly it involves carefully sorting through the circumstances of Wagner's career (focusing particularly on the publication of "Judaism in Music" and its republication in 1869, this time under his own name) in order to evaluate the meaning of the animus against the Jews. Basically, Katz's method is to juxtapose this biographic exploration against the surrounding climate of public antisemitic discussion, hinging his exposition on the central distinction between antisemitism in the earlier and middle decades of the century and the new attacks on the Jews that developed in the course of the 1870s when antisemitism first acquired its name. Katz's main conclusion is that the evaluation of Wagner's attitudes toward the Jews has to be disencumbered from the associations that later racialist commentators (from Wagner's son-in-law Houston Stewart Chamberlain to the Nazis) have given them and which historians have been only too ready to diagnose. In fact, Katz systematically diminishes the antisemitic motivation in Wagner's biography—not to explain the antisemitic ideas away (because they are salient enough, even pervasive, in his outlook), but to reduce their importance as an originating inspiration. He does this in two steps. First, he pinpoints the meaning of the antisemitic declaration of 1850 as an elaborate rationalization of Wagner's hostility to Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, whose artistic flaws were now found inscribed in their Jewishness: "It is reasonable to assume, therefore, not that his condemnation of his rivals was due to his anti-Jewish sentiments but quite the contrary, that his anti-Jewish sentiments flowed from his rivalry with the two Jews" (p. 32). Second, he locates Wagner's racialist formulation of this anti-Jewish hostility in the later 1870s after

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his encounter with Gobineau in Italy in 1876 and in response to the new antisemitic upsurge associated with the Stoecker movement and its counterparts. Now the existing animus against the Jews received a new elaboration, "It was [Wagner's] belief in the corruptness of the Jews that led to the concept of race, and not the concept of race that led to that of their depravity—as the widespread view concerning racial antisemitism in general and Wagner's Jew-hatred in particular would have it" (p. 117). In both cases Wagner's hostilities acquired coherence from the discursive resources that a certain climate of radical nationalist intellectualizing made available. In the 1840s and 1850s these comprised a set of notions concerning cultural essence that counterposed the Jewish "spirit" to the German and required the subsuming of the former in the latter: "What is therefore desired of the Jews is their de-Judaization—a process of radical assimilation, not indeed to the existing bourgeois world but to the new social and political creation that Wagner anticipated and imagined as a revolutionary Utopia" (p. 125). But by the 1870s a developed ideology of race was becoming available, and Wagner arrived at its conceptual terminology through a period when he was seeking to dignify his ideas by developing a more elaborate philosophical system. The concept of race gave him "a purely secular means of rendering the religious justification for his anti-Judaism superfluous" (p. 116). An intensive preoccupation with race theory began only in the last few years of Wagner's life, from the end of 1880. Thus in both phases "a certain interaction between public events and Wagner's way of thinking came into being" (p. 131), which was then consciously manipulated by racialist thinkers and politicians for their own purposes after his death. This is a useful exercise in historical relativizing. It is essentially an elaboration of the chapter, "The Scandal of the Jewish Artist: Richard Wagner," in Katz's earlier From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-1933 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 175-194. Perhaps it adds little that is substantive to that earlier treatment—apart from the careful biographic details—but, as such, it is a valuable addition to the literature. GEOFF ELEY University of Michigan

Michael Keren; Ben-Gurion and the Intellectuals: Power, Knowledge and Charisma. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1983. Niccol Machiavelli, who attempted to teach the princes of Europe how to secure the stability of their states, warned his clients never to delude themselves into believing that a political situation can be fully controlled. A statesman, he taught, may control at best about fifty percent of the forces affecting the fate of the state. The statesman's highest achievement is not to prevent disasters but to temper the forces of destruction and diminish the damage.

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With respect to nation builders like David Ben-Gurion, statesmen who establish a new state by acts of faith against great odds, the chances of success are even dimmer. Ben-Gurion recognized the need to marshall all available ideological, intellectual and psychological resources in order to support the act of establishing a Jewish state and to sustain it through the enormous dangers of its early formative years. Ben-Gurion not only appreciated intellectual values but also the authority intellectuals carry among (mostly European) Jews. He invested much energy in enlisting scientists, philosophers, historians, bible scholars, novelists and other intellectuals in support of the objectives of the new Jewish state. Many of these intellectuals were at first sufficiently inspired by the opportunity to participate in the revolutionary Zionist enterprise to respond willingly and even enthusiastically to Ben-Gurion's call and assume the role assigned to them by the founder of the state. The redemptive visions of Zionism anticipated a new era of cultural creativity and placed much hope in the powers of the Jewish intellect. This alliance between intellectuals and statesmen rested, however, on very fragile foundations. How long can genuine intellectuals celebrate without criticizing or express faith without doubt? How many writers can for long see it as their duty to reflect the great deeds of the time while ignoring the failures, ambivalences, fears and anxieties? The intellect and the artistic imagination are not like docile horses that can be harnessed to any cause without being corrupted. So inevitably what originated as an inspired cooperation developed eventually into strained relations that led to a series of confrontations between Ben-Gurion and the intellectuals. The record of Ben-Gurion's positions in these encounters reveals both the exceptionally wide scope of his intellectual interests and concerns and the lesser qualities of an opinionated, pretentious and often dilettantish person. Ben-Gurion, as Michael Keren reminds us in his book, never hesitated to assertively challenge astute intellectuals with his lay "theories" on such matters as the role of intuition in scientific discovery, the question of design in the cosmos, interpretations of the Biblical text or the properties of good literature. There is, however, nothing in the content of Ben-Gurion's ideas on these matters that can command genuine interest except in relation to his ideological and political roles. What is interesting, even fascinating, are not so much Ben-Gurion's ideas on science, the cosmos or other subjects, but the role of his very active and conscientious engagement in intellectual controversies in the development of his particular style of political leadership. Michael Keren should be credited for highlighting the importance of BenGurion's attempts to fuse political power and intellectual authority. His book contains valuable descriptions of the principal debates between Ben-Gurion and the intellectuals. Unfortunately, however, his excessive reverence for Ben-Gurion's intellectual claims seriously hampers his capacity to illuminate the role of BenGurion's interaction with the intellectuals as well as of his own self-presentation as an intellectual in the development of his charisma as a political leader. Instead of a critical historical analysis, Keren furnishes a celebratory commentary that calls us to take seriously Ben-Gurion's "theory of knowledge" and his attempts "to redefine values in light of the scientific revolution." Instead of recognizing the political logic of Ben-Gurion's attempts to fuse the statesman with the sage and the complicated sociocultural factors and psychological forces that cemented his leadership

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style and made him so effective, he confuses the issue by trying to convince us that Ben-Gurion was himself the epitome of the "philosopher king," that he sought scientific solutions to national problems and was guided by deep understanding of the state of scientific knowledge in his time. The question of Ben-Gurion's relations with the intellectuals and their implications for his leadership remains, therefore, wide open to further research. This very attractive subject could benefit from the investment of efforts by scholars who can distinguish between scientific knowledge and political wisdom, the intellectual content of ideas and the place of intellectual authority in the theatrics of political leadership, and most importantly between critical historical analysis and the credulous celebration of Ben-Gurion as a historical-political phenomenon. YARON EZRAHI The Hebrew University

Marianne Krull, Freud and His Father, (trans. Arnold J. Pomerans.) New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1986. xxi + 294 pages. $18.95. William J. McGrath, Freud's Discovery of Psychoanalysis: The Politics of Hysteria. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1986. 336 pages. $25.00.

The books under review are concerned with the relationship between Freud's discovery of the Oedipus complex, the death of his father and his Jewish identity. Both works present complicated arguments. It is possible to comment here only on their general strengths and weaknesses. Krull's main contribution is to present factual material on the Freud family history that she (and others) have uncovered. A second feature of the work is her thesis that there is an intimate link between Freud's abandonment in 1897 of the seduction theory and the death of his father, Jacob, the preceding year. She argues that Freud replaced the seduction theory, a valuable (she terms it "true") psychoanalytic theory, with the less useful conception of the Oedipus complex because he could not bear to expose his father as the one responsible for his own neurotic difficulties. To support such a thesis, Krull must demonstrate that Freud did turn away from the seduction theory, that he did so to protect his father and that the seduction theory is superior to its successor. None of these requirements is met. On the first point, Freud never completely relinquished the seduction theory. Krull acknowledges this, but downplays it. On the second issue, Krull's claim that Freud turned away from the seduction theory to protect his father depends on the adequacy of two elements in her discussion: her depiction of the Jewish father-son relationship that prevailed in the community within which the Freud family lived and her reconstruction of Freud's early family life. The former is drawn from existing scholarship and appears valid. But the latter is rooted in a series of claims that Krull admits are

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speculative. Finally, her account of the theory that Freud subsequently developed is simplistic. The developments all take place in the child's fantasies and feelings. This weak portrayal tilts the argument in Krull's favor. A further twist in Krull's argument is that although Freud erred in abandoning the seduction theory, he should have rid it of its "extreme fixation" on sexual seduction (p. 69). He could have developed the idea that the child "is misguided by his or her parents . . . and hence develops neurotic aberrations" (p. 70). Krull argues such a theory has the advantage of acknowledging the importance of the family in human development. This is a puzzling claim because it is hardly open to dispute that psychoanalysis is a theory of family dynamics and socialization. Krull may, of course, have some particular type of theory of family dynamics in mind, but she does not indicate what it might be. McGrath's study represents a more formidable contribution to Freud scholarship. He argues that early in life Freud's value system and personality were influenced by the outer political world. Of particular importance here was his absorption in the Philippson Bible and its commentary. (One of McGrath's most valuable contributions is to do justice to the place of this work in Freud's early reading.) As a boy Freud identified with the biblical figures Joseph and Moses, who provided him with examples of contrasting political responses to their plight as Jews in an alien environment. Freud's boyhood identifications, which later included Hannibal and Schiller's hero Karl Moor, also enabled him, in fantasy, to explore more immediate family problems. Freud's curiosity and feelings of rivalry were aroused early by the presence of Jacob Freud's two adult sons from his first marriage; here the story of Joseph resonated. Later, Jacob's story of how he reacted with seeming indifference to an antisemitic insult left Freud deeply disappointed in his father; he preferred to identify with Hannibal. Thus the political and familial as well as Freud's Jewish identity, intermingle in his youthful political fantasies. Although in early adulthood Freud turned away from politics and devoted himself to science, the eventual death of his father left him emotionally vulnerable; also, because politics had previously been important to him, the political events of the day began to play a prominent role in his dreams. McGrath claims that they came "to play a role in shaping the creative process at work in his central discoveries" (p. 22). In particular, Freud's discovery of the universality of the Oedipus complex and the boy's unconscious hostility toward the father allowed him to reduce political passions to personal ones. In doing so, he freed himself from the political fantasies that governed his inner life, and he endowed psychoanalysis with a counterpolitical stance. McGrath's conclusion is that psychoanalysis allowed Freud to uphold the principle of freedom in the realm of personal psychology. His early personal heroes were overtly political in their attempts to secure and defend freedom, and even though Freud was not, their influence led him to promote freedom through psychoanalysis. This thesis is argued with great power and is informed by an intricate and sophisticated reading of Freud's dreams. One major omission in this study is the failure to consider how Freud's relationship with his mother influenced his political fantasies and identifications. McGrath views Freud's discovery of the Oedipus complex as the act that freed him

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from his political fantasies. He focuses on the boy's unconscious hostility to his father. But Freud also emphasized the boy's love for his mother. It is, therefore, legitimate to ask what role this love played in his own fantasies and identifications. On a more general level, McGrath's account is teleological, in the sense that it gives the impression that Freud's major intellectual task was substantially accomplished when he completed The Interpretation of Dreams. McGrath's characterization of psychoanalysis as primarily a commitment to freedom does not really do justice to the meaning that Freud's theoretical work held for him. That work is an exploration of ways of thinking and feeling whose complexities are still not completely understood. It is hard to reconcile such an account with the knowledge that Freud's achievement posed theoretical issues that were to preoccupy him and others for decades to come. Despite these reservations, there is no question that McGrath's work is a significant scholarly contribution to Freud studies. NELLIE THOMPSON New York

Wm. Roger Louis and Robert W. Stookey (eds.), The End of the Palestine Mandate. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985. 181 pp. Martin Jones, Failure in Palestine: British and United States Policy After the Second World War. London: Mansell, 1986. xv + 396 pp. Some four decades after British rule came to an end in Palestine we are enjoying a spate of studies based on recently opened archival sources explaining the factors that compelled the British to depart. On a simple level, of course, it might be said that the British found their stay in Palestine intolerable. In effect, they had promised the country, or at least made it appear that they had promised the country, to two ethnic groups, each of which made demands on the whole of the territory. Given the absolute and irreconcilable nature of these demands, the British found themselves unable to rule and felt compelled to withdraw. Viewed from this angle, the British were not to blame. A variety of circumstances converged to promote the end of the Mandate. This, in essence, is the approach reflected in the collection of articles in the book edited by Wm. Roger Louis and Robert W. Stookey. Each article examines the role of one of the actors in the arena—ethnic group or world power—in ushering in the end of the Mandate. On the other hand, it can be said that the British failed in their administration of the Palestine Mandate by neglecting to develop Palestine as "a homeland for the Jewish people." Palestine became a victim of broader Middle Eastern policy, with the United Kingdom intent on courting the Arab world. In effect, Britain's betrayal of the international trust that the League of Nations had bestowed on it in 1919 induced the successor world organization, the United Nations, to terminate the British presence in Palestine in 1948. The work by Jones adopts this latter approach,

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charging the British with dismal failure in their Palestine policy. As Elie Kedourie in his foreword correctly notes, this study establishes that "Britain's failure was not so much a failure in her Palestine policy as in her Arab policy." Both works focus on developments in Palestine during the three tumultuous postwar years, 1945-48. But whereas the Jones study follows a chronological pattern in charting British and U.S. policy after the Second World War, the work edited by Louis and Stookey offers us a collection of historical essays on the events of that period. The essays were initially presented as a series of lectures at a panel of the American Historical Association annual convention in December 1983. Each lecturer is renowned as a prominent scholar in his field. Thus, Wm. Roger Louis, foremost authority on British imperial policy between the two world wars, analyzes the end of the Mandate from the British vantage point. Peter Grose, author of the enormously popular work Israel in the Mind of America, deals with the issue from the American angle. Oles M. Smolansky analyzes Soviet policy in the critical years, Michael Cohen presents the Zionist perspective, and Whalid Khalidi discusses events from the Arab side. The collection ends with an outstanding historical overview by the doyen of Middle Eastern studies in the United States, J. C. Hurewitz, in which he succinctly and critically examines the perspective offered in each of the substantive papers. Hurewitz brilliantly surveys the state of our knowledge of what happened in 194548 and highlights the fact that although we know quite a bit about Foreign Office maneuvering and even more about White House-State Department discord on the Palestine question, we know precious little about Arab policy-making and virtually nothing about the inputs that fed Soviet policy-making. At best, in the last case, it is simply a matter of educated guesswork based on the interests that the Soviets were trying to promote and the goals they sought to attain. It might be asked whether the contributing authors—all of whom have published extensively on the subject of their expertise—added in this volume anything that they had not previously published. But, interestingly enough, in numerous instances , points of information that were previously unknown or inadequately appreciated are, indeed, highlighted in this collection. Thus, Louis, for instance, notes that he was able to get to the Frankfurter papers in the Library of Congress only after his magnum opus, The British Empire in the Middle East 1945-1951 had already appeared, and his present essay makes use of the new material. The real value of this collection, though, lies in its comparative approach. Whereas a single work usually has but one primary focus or thesis, a collection of essays on a critical historical event offers diverse, intersecting and even clashing interpretations. The collection is invaluable for teaching purposes because students will be able to gain an appreciation of the divergent viewpoints from which the same subject can be examined and analyzed. For example, the various essays offer contrasting interpretations of Truman's role in the emergence of the State of Israel. Louis seems to concur in the British viewpoint that each time the British "had attempted to work in concert with the Americans, the president had 'double-crossed' them." He fails to acknowledge, however, that at no time had Truman committed himself to supporting Bevin's pro-Arab policy on Palestine, so the president could hardly be accused of double-crossing anybody. Grose, on the other hand, adopts a much more

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favorable interpretation of Truman's conduct. The president's commitment to Chaim Weizmann to recognize the Jewish state, he declares, was in his eyes "as binding as an act of state." Michael Cohen, although acknowledging the political considerations that underlay the president's decision to grant diplomatic recognition, maintains that Truman was, in fact, only coming to terms with reality. By May 14, 1948, Cohen argues, a Jewish state was, in fact, in existence, thanks to "the Jews' own military efforts and administrative skills . . . during the last crucial weeks of the Palestine Mandate.'' Robert W. Stookey rounds off the collection with an excellent bibliographic essay that furnishes an important introductory aid for students of Middle Eastern affairs and the Palestine question. However, Stookey could not refer to one valuable study that has appeared in the meantime and that warrants inclusion in any such historiographic essay, namely the work by Jones. Jones traverses familiar ground in reviewing the successive stages of the Palestine saga: Bevin's entry into office in 1945 as foreign secretary and his pledge to resolve the Palestine problem; the creation of the 1946 Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry; the failure to implement the Commission's recommendations; the establishment of UNSCOP; the adoption of the partition plan by the General Assembly on November 29, 1947; the announcement of Britain's planned withdrawal; America's backsliding on partition as a result of State Department intrigue; and Truman's recognition of the State of Israel to the surprise of many and the dismay of those same State Department officials. Nonetheless, Jones's account is refreshing and informative. Jones has plumbed the British and American archives and his selection of quotations demonstrates a skillful use of original material. At the same time, however, he makes judicious use of secondary sources. All of this combines to make a lively and enlightening review of the factors that led to the failure of British policy in Palestine. Jones attributes this failure, as Elie Kedourie notes in his stimulating foreword, to Britain's decision to involve the Arab states in the Palestine question. This involvement effectively stymied the search for a meaningful policy in the late 1930s and led to the issuance of the infamous White Paper—a classic example of appeasement in the face of threatened aggression. And in the postwar period the intrusion of the Arab states into the Palestine problem led to its intractability. But Jones takes this thesis a step further and demonstrates that Bevin's decision to forestall any British role in implementing partition was but a continuation of the same flawed policy, namely, that of courting the Arab states by ostensibly supporting their cause in the Palestine problem. Bevin was out to pay off the Arab sheikhs in Palestinian coinage in a vain effort to preserve British influence in the Middle East. The tragedy of it all was that Bevin's policy led directly to the enormous bloodletting of 1948, during which six Arab states waged war against the fledgling Jewish state. The durability of the Palestinian conflict, in Jones's view, is a direct consequence of these two failures in Britain's Palestine policy—the engagement of the Arab states in determining Palestine's destiny and Britain's resolve to remain totally detached from the partition solution. Succeeding generations, Jones maintains, have suffered the consequences of these fateful decisions in British policy. In recommending this excellent study of the background to the Palestine conflict it is regrettable that one must point out an unfortunate publishing lapse—notes 7

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through 21 in the last chapter are completely omitted. Future editions should correct this shortcoming in an otherwise admirable study. SHLOMO SLONIM The Hebrew University

Paul Robert Magosci, Ukraine: A Historical Atlas. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1986. 59 pp. Because the Ukraine (or rather "Ukraine" without the definite article, according to the usage in Magosci's book) is a region of such great importance for Jewish history, those interested in Jewish studies have every reason to welcome the appearance of this atlas. Here they will be able to locate the Ukrainian towns where Hasidism first arose and, to take a rather different sort of example, to follow the campaign of Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi in the fateful year 1648. In preparing this invaluable work Magosci was obliged to tackle several intractable problems, among them the issue of where, exactly, is Ukraine. His solution, which may not please everyone, is to define Ukraine as that vast area that today constitutes the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (including the Crimea) as well as contiguous territories inhabited, at least in part, by ethnic Ukrainians (such as the Chelm region, now part of Poland). The atlas traces the historical developments in this area from the times of the Scythians to the present and avoids, wisely, any judgment as to whether Kievan Rus was or was not a specifically Ukrainian state or whether Khmel'nyts'kyi was or was not a Ukrainian nationalist. In this regard, the author appears to differ from the gentleman who funded his volume, of whom we are told that he "wishes to commemorate the beginning of the second millennium of Christianity in Ukraine-Rus' with this cartographic survey of three millennia of Ukrainian history." The atlas contains twenty-five beautifully prepared maps, which are accompanied by succinct explanations of the main events that took place in the region. Most of the maps are rather conventional, but special treatment is given to such subjects as medieval trade routes, religious divisions and minority populations. This last map will be of special interest to the readers of this journal because it presents details on the Jews in Ukraine in the nineteenth century. Magosci, who holds the chair in Ukrainian studies at the University of Toronto, has previously published a very important book on Subcarpathian Rus' (also of great interest to Jewish historians). His atlas is a notable contribution to Ukrainian scholarship in the West, which has succeeded in making of Ukrainian studies an independent field of inquiry rather than a mere appendage of Russian history. The so-called ethnic explosion in North America may be credited with promoting this scholarship, just as it has promoted Jewish studies. It might be added that coopera-

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tion between Jewish and Ukrainian scholars, not much in evidence in the past, is today an obvious and pressing desideratum.' EZRA MENDELSOHN The Hebrew University

Note 1. In 1983 a scholarly conference on Ukrainian Jewish relations, attended by leading historians from both "camps," was held in Canada. The long-awaited volume based on the lectures given at this conference has just appeared (Peter J. Potichnyj and Howard Aster [eds.], Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective. Edmonton, 1988).

Bruce Mazlish, The Meaning of Karl Marx. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. viii + 188 pp. Although he keeps it a secret from us as long as he can, Bruce Mazlish finally tells us the meaning of Karl Marx. It is love, not hate. It is humanism, not class war. Western relations with the Soviets "should not be grudging, hostile and constantly seeking to achieve a competitive advantage, but rather carried out in a spirit of mutuality, recognizing in the opponent a 'human quality.' " With this as output, the reader who knows something of Marx's development can guess at Mazlish's input. The "true" Marx derived from his humanistic, largely unpublished writings before 1844. Marx's attempts at science may be wrong according to the author (although Mazlish is more accepting of the doctrine than he realizes), but never mind. Social science is impossible anyway. The true Marxism is religion—secular Christianity, in fact. Fortunately, the author's aversion to clear distinctions permits him to tell us a great deal about Marx that contradicts his thesis. Marx was a Jew as well as a Christian. He was a scientist as well as a moralist. He was an antisemite as well as a libertarian. He was a materialist as well as a humanist and a skeptic. How might one cope with these contradictions in Marx? Perhaps Marx was simply a sloppy thinker. Certainly, Mazlish does not want to say that any more than does this reviewer. Consequently, Mazlish vacillates between the two remaining alternatives: either Marx was really an antiscientific, humanist Christian all along, despite his diatribes against that position from the Theses on Feuerbach in 1845 to his death/or Marx went through successive intellectual stages, each of which was internally consistent but antithetical with the other positions he took. It is this last position that I advocated in my book, Marx: Economist, Philosopher, Jew. I there argue that after his early years at home, Marx adopted three worldviews: he was until 1843 a democratic philosophical skeptic in opposition to

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the German monarchy and Hegel's religious defense of it; by 1844 he had turned to secular humanism in the form of communism as a means of recovering mankind's true loving nature from the clutches of private property and (dirty Jewish) civil society; finally, by 1845, in the Theses, he adopted what he thought was a monistic, historical social science based on struggle and the immanence of law in this-worldly evolution. The latter two are the secular analogues of Christianity and Judaism. They represent different worldviews when not homogenized into the '' Judeo-Christian tradition." Mazlish frequently cannot make up his mind between the "contradictory" stages of Marx and the unchanging humanist Marx. But if he must make a choice, it is the Christian humanist as the true Marx. Why? Mazlish would like "socialism with a human face." In fact, he would like everyone to be as nice, fair and kind as he obviously is himself. But what is the outcome of his good intentions? Alas, he devotes a chapter to "Socialism with a Human Face," and what must he start with?—Marx On The Jewish Question, with its pustulant antisemitism! Mazlish cannot bring himself to call Marx's diatribe proto-Nazi—but only by an act of great restraint. What kind of humanism is antisemitism? Clearly, humanism is not to be confused with "humaneness" as Mazlish does. The "truly human" people, according to Marx, are those who accept the ideals of Protestant Germany. The real inhabitants of civil society in Germany and elsewhere, Marx charges, hypocritically act like the egoistic and "anti-human" Jews. Civil society must be transformed into human society and the Jews and Judaism have to be eliminated. Mazlish believes that what Marx said, or meant to say, matters because Marx is venerated in much of the world. It would be nice if his work could be reinterpreted so that he turned out to be a kindly, loving Christian. Then all the problems of authoritarianism inherent in his determinism would disappear. Alas, it just is not so. Marx reverted to the Jewish preconception of the significance of history—and then took the fatal step beyond. He took it on himself to say that he knew its secrets as a science of society. It is this hubris that gives rise to the totalitarianism inherent in his doctrine. It is worthwhile studying Marx to find out what he really was trying to say. But the purpose of that investigation must be to clarify his doctrine so that it can be rationally discussed by all the parties concerned. To attempt a "reformation" by revising what Marx really meant in palatable terms is to accept the deification of Marx that has been the source of so much mischief.

MURRAY WOLFSON California State University, Fullerton

Ylana N. Miller, Government and Society in Rural Palestine, 1920-1948. Austin: Texas University Press, 1985. The actual subject of this book is a little more ambitious than the title of the book might suggest. The real aim of the author, stated immediately at the outset, is to seek an explanation for the more fundamental question in the history of British rule

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over Palestine: How did the Zionists, who were a mere third of the population in 1948, so decisively beat the Palestinians, who were two-thirds of the population? The author might have gone even further and asked why the Palestinian Arabs failed to rise up in a united armed front against the Zionists and managed only meager and amateurish local initiatives? Scholars formerly sought explanations for this phenomenon in terms of the "backward, primitive and reactionary" Palestinians or else they assumed that the Zionists enjoyed technological superiority. (The latter argument is certainly flawed insofar as it does not explain why a general arising did not occur.) In any event, Ylana Miller sets out to present an entirely new answer to this enigma. The explanation, she suggests, is to be found in the dynamics of the daily relations between the British government and the local peasant population during the Mandate. Although the author refrains from referring to comparative cases or to historical sociology in general, this book constitutes an important contribution to the general question of the relationship of peasants to insurrection. In this specific case, to be sure, insurrection did not take place, but its occurrence would have been a natural outcome in the circumstances; thus its failure to take place is an important aspect of that question. The basic argument of the book is that the Palestinian Arabs, especially the peasants, did not create a united front in the 1948 War because of the effects of British rale over them. Singled out are the British tendencies to romanticism and conservatism as well as their patronizing view of the Palestinian peasants, which led them to seek to protect and preserve the traditional village community in the face of mounting capitalistic pressures on all sides. The result was that the village community was not prepared for the threat of war in 1948. A major example analyzed by the author is education. Here the British made major inroads into the social fabric of the Arab village by giving state employment to a large number of teachers, but the orientation of the education was strictly traditionalist, thereby dampening awareness of political events. An important new phase in Anglo-Palestinian relations began after the rebellion of 1936-39. The White Paper of 1939 reversed many of the promises made in the Balfour Declaration and raised high hopes within the Palestinian national movement. This reversal of policy found expression in growing British involvement in local administration in a search for ways and means to increase local institutional autonomy, as in the case of the new local village councils, inaugurated in the 1940s. Ironically, however, heightened Palestinian confidence in the government proved disastrous to their cause as basically, and despite appearances to the contrary, the attitude of the British government remained committed to traditional values. All this is quite convincing, but it would have been even more interesting had the author related her findings to more general theories of revolution and insurrection. Part of the material she presents lends itself well to such a treatment. The favorable attitude of the British authorities toward the Palestinian peasants in the 1940s, for example, brought these two sides very close together. Revolution theorists would immediately draw the conclusion that such a situation must have divested the Palestinian peasants of much of their "tactical autonomy," a vital precondition for a large-scale insurrection. On the other hand, revolution theory would also have alerted the author to the fact that a primary reason for the lack of a major armed

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effort on the part of the Palestinians was the absence of most members of the Palestinian national leadership, who had fled during the 1930s rebellion. And as Erit Wolf has taught us, no peasant-based insurrection can take place without an urban-based leadership. In sum, this is an important contribution to the political economy of the Palestinian national movement, one which might have been greatly improved had it been related explicitly to the wider field of historical sociology in general and the sociology of revolution in particular. HAIM GERBER The Hebrew University

George L. Mosse, German Jews Beyond Judaism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press/Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1985. 98 pp.

Some eighteen years ago I attended a symposium on Jewish identity in which the late Walter Kaufmann delivered a moving personal testimony. In the cultivated inflections of a German-accented English, this famed Nietzsche scholar explained that Jewishness for him was preeminently a sensibility that led one to celebrate the universal dignity of the human being, to honor books, to appreciate beauty and refined music. When someone protested that such a sensibility was not specifically Jewish, Kaufmann retorted that providence had placed in the passionate care of the Jews the promotion of this sensibility. Until reading George Mosse's German Jews Beyond Judaism, I had dismissed Kaufmann's testimony as a charming but vacuous affectation. Mosse, however, instructs us that Kaufmann's Jewish identity was not idiosyncratic and, indeed, was typical of secularized German Jews. To be sure, this identity was grounded in values derived not from the ancient wisdom of Israel but the Aufklarung, the German Enlightenment. But—as Mosse deftly demonstrates—in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the emancipated Jews of Germany increasingly became the most passionate and nigh-exclusive votaries of these values. Under the aegis of these values—which fall under the rubric of Bildung—the Jews were emancipated and found passage into the modern world. This passage, as Mosse reminds us, was initially forged by a historic conjunction of the Enlightenment and emancipation. Thus the Jews of Germany naturally viewed the Aufklärer as their allies and the Aufklarung as the culture and ethos that would sponsor a life of dignity and opportunity beyond the degradation and confinement of the ghetto. Specifically, the Jews were inspired by the promise that only Bildung could qualify them for citizenship in the new era promised by the Enlightenment. The inherited accidents of one's birth were utterly irrelevant to the process of Bildung—"which combines the meaning carried by the English word 'education' with the notions of character formation and moral education" (p. 3).

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Emerging from the Enlightenment's affirmation of universal humanity, grounded in reason and individual autonomy, the concept of Bildung became an extensive value embracing education as a continuous moral process of rational and aesthetic cultivation. But history, Mosse observes, had an ironic and ultimately tragic paradox in store for the Jews. The very Bildung that promised to integrate the Jews into the common fabric of humanity, particularly as sponsored by German Kultur, in the end left them virtually isolated within a German society overtaken by nationalism and its invidious myths and symbols. As such, the Jews of Germany would willynilly regard it as a Jewish ' 'vocation'' to promote Bildung as allied to the Enlightenment. Mosse emphasizes this alliance, for many more febrile German chauvinists and later Nazis would seek to divorce Bildung—associated with Deutsche Kultur— from its primal moorings in the Enlightenment and the ideal of a shared humanity guarded by the supremacy of reason (p. 72ff). Mosse poignantly captures this isolation by noting that the first production performed in 1933 by the Judische Kulturbund—established by the Nazis to re-ghettoize Jewish cultural life—was the premier play of the Enlightenment, Lessing's Nathan the Wise. The fact that the Judische Kulturbund chose this play to inaugurate its program, as Mosse points out, constituted in the face of tyrannical forces of unreason a courageous affirmation of the Enlightenment. But this was no nai've, atavistic gesture. The directors of the Kulturbund performance instituted a slight but significant change in the play that subtly dramatized the plight of Jewry in that tragic hour. Lessing had concluded the play with Nathan's joyful witness of the Christian and Muslim acknowledging each other as relatives and departing arm and arm, whereupon Nathan wreathed in happiness exits. "In the 1933 production," Mosse observes, "Nathan stayed behind, proud and lonely at the front of the stage, as the curtain fell" (p. 16). Mosse traces the dialectics of this isolation. The ethic of Bildung had betrayed the Jews in that it left them unattuned to the experience of Germany's lower classes and popular sentiments and culture. In their goal to become citizens of the modern world, the Jews of Germany wedded their imagination and future to the educated bourgeoisie and high culture. To be sure, there were Jews who made a sustained attempt to make contact with the masses by celebrating popular German culture. But this attempt failed miserably, as Mosse shows, because these Jews ultimately remained beholden to high culture. Bildung was a culture that transcended the limiting boundaries of nationalism and religion; as such, it was to provide a forum for all human beings to meet irrespective of religious faith and national sentiment. "With the passage of time, Bildung itself, like its aesthetic component, became detached from the individual and his struggle for self-cultivation and was transformed into a kind of religion—the worship of the true, the good, and the beautiful" (p. 11). Bildung thus became the faith and identity of German Jewry; paradoxically, it also became a Jewish identity. The paradox is captured in the title of Mosse's book German Jews Beyond Judaism: they were beyond Judaism yet they remained Jews. Though denizens of a high culture, unfettered by religious and national sentiments, these Jewish Bildungsbürger were identifiably Jews. This was a sociologically discernible fact, one that antisemites, of course, relished. Before the

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Weimar period few secularized Jews would own up to this identity and render it a self-conscious facet of their lives. In the wake of the First World War, however, an increasing number of the Jewish Bildungsburgertum would accept this identity with self-conscious pride. Even before the war, the young Walter Benjamin discovered his Jewish identity, triumphantly acclaiming Jews to be the yeast of true culture. For Benjamin and other Jewish radicals, "Jewishness became a metaphor for the critical mind and for Bildung" (p. 66). Mosse devotes his penultimate chapter, "A Left-Wing Identity," to the Jewish radicals of Weimar Germany. He does not disguise his admiration and affection for these cultural and political radicals who despite all odds valiantly sought to maintain and, indeed, expand the horizons of Bildung as a universal ethic and promise of a more dignified future for all. In the end, it was these radicals, together with the Jewish scholars of the period (the subject of a separate chapter), who secured the integrity of "the German-Jewish Bildungsburgertum which, more than any other single group, preserved Germany's better self across dictatorship, war, holocaust, and defeat" (p. 82). Mosse duly documents his thesis that "the left-wing intellectuals exemplified a powerful urge to integrate, to find their Jewish substance in German culture. Many were aware of their Jewishness, but thought that through socialism they would arrive at the final point of transcendence beyond Judaism and Germanic roots" (p. 55). Mosse marshals citations reflecting the Jewish self-consciousness of the Weimar radicals. But one wonders how typical these statements are. I suspect that we, myself included, tend to regard these Jewish warriors of justice and freedom beyond all bondage, psychic and political, as more Jewish than they actually regarded themselves. Mosse acknowledges that he is proffering an explanation of why the Jewish intellectuals of Weimar continue to intrigue and capture our imagination, especially those Jews who would still like to regard themselves as proponents of culture, the avant-garde and the politics of justice. One suspects that there is a dimension of "ideological" justification for the affection and identification some contemporary Jews (again, myself included) have qua Jews with these heroic figures who led "a rear-guard action against the narrowing vision of the times" (p. 50). One also suspects that, albeit in somewhat more muted tones, Mosse is also proffering the Weimar radicals, whom he clearly regards as a quintessential embodiment of the German-Jewish Bildungsburgertum, as exemplifying an alternative Jewish identity, a "secularized" identity beyond the parochial bounds of religion and community. Here I must demur. My demurral is not axiological, but sociological. I am not questioning the nobility or moral claims of Mosse's radicalized Bildung-modoi of the secular Jew; rather, I do question whether one can speak of a sociologically meaningful Jewish identity that is utterly bereft of some sense of solidarity with one's fellow Jews. Further, in order to speak of Jewish identity that is sociologically meaningful, one would have to assume that Jewishness is more than a mere sensibility or even an identity in the existential and psychological sense; a sociologically meaningful Jewish identity, even a thoroughly secularized one, would require a shared community and culture with other Jews. I do not wish to deny that a Jewish identity, grounded in existential and psychological factors, may affect the behavior of an

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individual and thus have sociological and historical significance, but this is different than saying that such an identity is sociologically meaningful, that this identity is grounded in and affects the shared life of Jewish individuals, that this identity transcends the individual's inner world and links one to a real community that one perforce regards as one's Schicksalsgemeinschaft, with all the conflict and responsibility entailed by such membership. Mosse actually acknowledges this sociological requirement of a meaningful Jewish identity, but only implicitly. Hence his Bildung-model of Jewish identity only apparently comes close to Isaac Deutscher's "non-Jewish Jews," Jews who have achieved a distinctive Jewish identity by freeing themselves of Judaism and Jewish loyalties. Unlike Deutscher, he neither celebrates nor recommends a repudiation of Jewish solidarity. The issue seems to leave him perplexed, for he has difficulty reconciling his Jewish Bildungsburger—"German Jews beyond Judaism"—with a concept of Jewish identity entailing a sense of shared destiny and mutual responsibility. The ambiguity of Mosse's Jewish identity is highlighted by the fact that the adoption of Bildung did not necessarily bring one beyond Judaism. The observant and Orthodox Jews of Germany (and elsewhere) frequently embraced Bildung with an enthusiasm no less exuberant than that of their secularized fellow Jews. Further, East European Jews often nurtured an affection for Bildung, especially as associated with the German Enlightenment. The German concept of Bildung held a powerful attraction for East European Jewry, although they were not, certainly not directly, part of the peculiar context of German political history. This suggests a structural affinity between Judaism and the German-sponsored conception of Bildung. Mosse notes this affinity and accordingly records the desideratum that ' 'the connections between these two traditions [Judaism and German Bildung] need further investigation" (p. 36). In order to underscore that the question deserves more than a parenthesis, I should like to indicate adumbratively three structural correspondences between Judaism as a culture and the German culture of Bildung. Both traditional Judaism and the German Bildung have a concept of high culture (Kultur) that attributes to education and learning an intrinsic, over-arching value; both Judaism and German Kultur conceive knowledge as anti-eudaemonistic, affirming knowledge as pre-eminently serving truth and not principally the promotion of human happiness, technique or some instrumental aim; both Judaism and German Kultur are joined in an ethical idealism, namely, the conviction that education and the quest for knowledge are to be dedicated to the illumination of what is incumbent on human beings in the service of truth and the principle of the good. These affinities perhaps explain the depth and abiding Jewish romance with the German culture, despite the attendant anguish. The above remarks are offered as an indication that although brief, Mosse's book is immensely stimulating, rich in information and insight. A master of suprising detail, Mosse maintains a broad vision that is ever alert to the moral questions and occasional light bequeathed to us by history. German Jews Beyond Judaism thus serves to reinforce and, indeed, augment our gratitude to Mosse as a uniquely engaging scholar of the German-Jewish experience. PAUL MENDES-FLOHR The Hebrew University

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Shlomo Naaman, Ferdinand Lassalle [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1986. 192 pp.

People familiar with the history of German social democracy since 1875, with its symbols and propaganda, know how important Ferdinand Lassalle was to this movement. On party flags and posters his portrait appeared next to Marx's, not as a lesser figure, but as a peer. Indeed, Lassalle was for a long time in the history of German social democracy as central as Marx. A closer look at the attitudes expressed by the party reveals that the quasi-national stand of Lassalle left a deeper imprint on its members and leaders, or at least was closer to their heart than Marx's pure internationalist approach. Lassalle's disciples, not Marx's, were the natural partners to the fateful decision of the German Social Democratic party in August 1914 to support the proposed war budget—in other words, to agree to an aggressive, bourgeois, nationalistic war. The betrayal of the socialist cause by the Social Democratic party in Germany—the greatest of its kind in the world—was thus interpreted by many as an outcome of what Lassalle preached or symbolized. Ironically, this did not help the German Social Democrats against the devastating verdict of German politics and history: in the eyes of both conservatives and revolutionaries of the right, the Social Democrats remained traitors to the German cause despite their national stand in 1914. For the German postwar right, especially for the National Socialists, the question of who was the original mentor of the Social Democratic party or the question of the differences between Marx and Lassalle were of little significance—their Jewish origin sufficed to brand the party and its followers without relating to the specific values and contents of German socialism. For various reasons, Lassalle's biography long remained marginal for historians researching German history or the history of German social democracy. To rightwing historians (until 1945, sometimes even later) social democracy as a whole, and under any leadership, meant Umsturz (revolution in the negative sense) and the Judaization of society. To left-wing historians (who in any case were excluded from the core of the German historians' guild) the Marxist approach and the myth of collaboration between Lassalle and Bismarck were cause enough to ignore Lassalle. Only liberal historians who disliked Marx and approved of the alleged alliance between Bismarck and moderate socialism deemed Lassalle's biography important. This was the case with Hermann Oncken and Gustav Meyer, without whom Lassalle would have remained—maybe because of his tragic and foolish death in a duel—a mere curiosity. Shlomo Naaman's biography is an attempt to rescue Lassalle for posterity and, at the same time, to free him from the link to Bismarck and Oncken. This was the justification for his adding yet another biography to those already published. Naaman, an expert on the history of German socialism in the nineteenth century, presents Lassalle as a paradox—a "Red Prussian," a Maccabee, a prophet and Messiah all in one. This Hebrew version, appearing fourteen years after the German original, is not only much shorter, but lacks footnotes and a bibliography. It should, therefore, be considered as a popular history and not be treated by the reviewer with the usual professional tools. The context in which Naaman views Lassalle is that of Marx, Hess and Lassalle.

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Rather than looking into the Bismarck-Lassalle connection, Naaman seeks the Jewish-revolutionary aspect. To him Lassalle is first and foremost a revolutionary, but a revolutionary with a Jewish background and motivation. The Israeli reader— to whom Marx is always a figure of contemporary interest—associates Hess with the rise of Zionism will find this connection stimulating. This is also the explanation for the difference in structure between the shorter Hebrew and the longer German version of the book. But alas, this condensation frustrates Naaman's intention of revealing the "contradictory unity" of the three revolutionaries. Hess, and to a lesser extent Marx, pop abruptly into the biography and then vanish, leaving the reader wondering about the nature of their contribution to the creation of the great socialist revolutionary movement. As the story develops, the Jewish connection and the implications of Lassalle being a Jewish outsider would seem to lose their impact. In addition, the author's claim that the book would "peel off the many guises hiding the multi-faceted character of Ferdinand Lassalle and uncover the solid core of his personality" is left unfulfilled. Even had he realized this aim, he would not have reached the heart of the matter because a good biography does not only aim at understanding its subject, but also at explaining the relation between that subject and the social environment. The book, indeed, reveals Lassalle as a person who kept his Jewish characteristics while radically turning his back on Judaism, a man who even as a revolutionary could not rid himself of a purely bourgeois way of thinking and behavior. Yet, in spite of all efforts, and despite the close scrutiny of many aspects of Lassalle's life—his trials between 1849 and 1863, his experience as an author (of the drama Franz von Sickingen), the creation of the Allegemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein (ADAV [the General German Workers' Association]), his political activity and his love affairs—Lassalle's character remains an enigma even as the book ends. There is of course an objective obstacle—Lassalle's youth throughout his political activity renders any final assessment very difficult. After all, the thoughts and deeds quoted and described in the book are those of an unbalanced, even immature man between the ages of 23 and 39. Keeping this fact in mind, the question of Lassalle as a person recedes in comparison to the more interesting problem of explaining his political success in the early 1860s, the very years of the rise of Bismarck, the Realpolitiker, to power. Even the detailed analysis of the text of his speeches and ideas does not explain his receptibility and popularity with his contemporaries (as far as they went). The popularity he enjoyed after his death remains an even greater enigma than his success during his lifetime. The book, I am afraid, does not provide the solution. Perhaps the drawback is the very traditional approach to texts and their analysis, where the inter-relation between societal environment, subconscious motives and the written or expressed idea is insufficiently examined. In his book Naaman follows to a great extent the method so typical of German and Israeli historiography until about twenty years ago, explaining history through ideas expressed by political leaders. This approach leaves the really important questions only half answered. MOSHE ZIMMERMAN The Hebrew University

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Theodore Norman. An Outstretched Arm—A History of the Jewish Colonization Association. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985. 326 pp.

In 1891 Baron Maurice de Hirsch established the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), endowing it with the fabulous sum of 50 million francs (some $10 million). His initial intention was to encourage by personal example and leadership other Jewish magnates to invest part of their fortunes in a common enterprise aimed at the removal of millions of the oppressed Russian Jews to new, free countries. His own enterprise, the JCA, was to concentrate its work in the Argentine Republic, where he intended to settle several hundred thousand Russian Jews in some of the remote and uninhabited territories of that immense country. Although his dreams turned out to be utterly unrealistic, Baron de Hirsch managed to perpetuate the existence of the JCA as a philanthropic organization dedicated to assisting Jews in their efforts to become farmers, emigrate from countries of oppression, improve their education or consolidate their economic situation. For that purpose, he entrusted the JCA, in the year after its creation, with his entire fortune. On his sudden death in his hunting lodge in Hungary on April 21, 1896, the JCA inherited securities, shares and bonds whose value totalled £7,337,957 (then equivalent to some $36,689,000). This immense sum was then added to the original capital of the JCA, exceeding any other philanthropic donation, Jewish or nonJewish, to a charitable foundation. The baron's Association thus became the richest and most important institution in the Jewish world. Ninety years of its history, from 1891 to 1981, are the subject of Theodore Norman's book. Historical literature on this extraordinary Jewish organization is utterly meager. Baron de Hirsch's colonization work in Argentina and JCA's subsequent work there in colonization, immigration and education have been dealt with by this reviewer in his books on Argentina.' Yet no comprehensive work on the JCA has been published before. A previous history commissioned by the JCA and prepared almost thirty years ago by Andre Chouraqui, remains unpublished. Norman's book was therefore intended to fill a major lacuna, and the author was granted free access to JCA's archives. As the managing director for over thirty years of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, a sister organization of the JCA (also established by the Baron in 1891), Norman had the full collaboration of JCA's director and staff; and the Honorable L. H. L. Cohen, JCA's president, provided the book with a foreword. It may, therefore, be regarded as the authorized history of this institution. The task of covering nine decades of Jewish history and the variety of activities in which the JCA was engaged in Europe as well as the Americas involves major structural problems. The author opted for a chronological approach and divided the book into three parts: before the First World War, the interwar years, and the period since the Second World War. Each part is itself divided into geographic chapters and these, in turn, have a thematic arrangement. This complicated structure tends to interrupt the flow of the narrative and blurs the dynamic and decisive role played by the central organs of the JCA—its president, council and especially the general director. The book begins with a short description of the situation of Russian Jewry in the

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last two decades of the nineteenth century and of Baron de Hirsch's decision to create the JCA. The crucial role of the colonization project in Argentina as the solution to the plight of Russian Jews is discussed, though not in the context of the political dream that nourished the baron's endeavors—the establishment of "some sort of a Jewish state'' in the northern desolate territories of Argentina. This secretly held goal made all the difference between the character of the philanthropist that the Baron seemed to be and that of the ambitious, farsighted "territorialist" that he, in fact, was. Although clearly aware of it (p. 24), the author does not emphasize this vital aspect of Baron de Hirsch's project, which made it actually the most pragmatic of all territorialist schemes that were to multiply subsequently. The book next takes up the JCA's activities in Tsarist Russia. After the baron's death, the St. Petersburg branch of the JCA managed to draw the association into a variety of projects, only a few of which were related to the original intention of the baron to facilitate an exodus of Russian Jewry. Assistance to Jewish farmers, the establishment of agricultural and vocational schools, loan funds for artisans and small businesses, a system of information bureaus on emigration—all these contributed enormously toward alleviating the plight of many thousands of Russian Jews. Given the fact—again, not emphasized by the author—that the JCA was the only large Jewish institution authorized to conduct its activities throughout Russia, its work surely was of vital historical importance. Norman hints at this, but unfortunately fails to be more substantive. He bases his description almost entirely on the JCA's annual report for 1913, without providing the kind of detailed insight that his archival material might have afforded. A reliance on this as his primary source has led him to underestimate such outstanding achievements of the JCA as, for instance, the census it undertook at the turn of the century that produced a wealth of demographic and socioeconomic information on Russian Jewry.2 The potential and actual work undertaken by the JCA on behalf of Russian Jewry during the First World War has been totally omitted. Ample documentation on this work must exist in JCA's archives and this subject ought, perhaps, to have been included in Norman's book. The third main arena of JCA's activities discussed is Palestine. As is well known, the leaders of Hovevei Zion in 1891 and Theodor Herzl in 1895 tried unsuccessfully to enlist Baron de Hirsch's support for their cause. Yet, Hirsch was not opposed in principle to Palestine; he merely knew better than anybody else the risks of dealing with the sultan and with his entourage on a business—to say nothing of a political— basis. The fact that Baron Edmond de Rothschild was active in Eretz Israel was not the reason that Hirsch chose to avoid becoming involved there. It was, instead, the nature of Rothschild's work—a small-scale colonization project, living on charity and controlled and guided by an expensive administration—that deterred him. He was dreaming then of a large-scale mass colonization, autonomously self-directed. Palestine seemed to him too small, and the methods employed by Hovevei Zion and Rothschild too ill-conceived for him to consider joining them on their own terms. After Hirsch's death, with the emergence of the Zionist Organization as a political entity, anti-Zionism became more pronounced among the JCA's leaders. Opposition to work in Palestine could be overcome only with difficulty by those members of the council—mainly from France—who supported some specific plans

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of settlement in the Galilee and Judea. Had it not been for Rothschild's desperate need to find a better administrative system—which he believed JCA possessed— and a solid organization to carry on his work, the JCA would have had a merely marginal role in the history of Jewish settlement in Palestine before and after the First World War. When Rothschild turned to the JCA in 1899, offering it management of all his colonies and the necessary funds to administer them and cover all their deficits, JCA could hardly refuse his proposal. Yet, the work of the Commission Palestinienne—set up and presided over by Edmond de Rothschild (and later by his son James)—and the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), established in 1924, should not be regarded as direct JCA activities. While describing JCA's activities in Eretz Israel, Norman does not adequately alert us to this distinction. Relying heavily on Simon Schama's Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (London: 1978), he leaves the reader with the impression that the role of the JCA in Palestine was larger than it, in fact, was. The author proceeds, in turn, to the other countries and provinces where the JCA invested its funds in diversified philanthropic operations. Colonization work in Brazil, Canada, Cyprus and Turkey; support to Jewish farmers in Romania and later in the USSR and Poland; substantial contributions to schools in Romania, Galicia and Bukovina; loan funds in Poland, the Baltic states and Czechoslovakia; and, not least, the emigration work in which it engaged—at first, in the early 1920s, on its own, and after 1927 in conjunction with (HIAS) and Emigdirekt within the framework of HICEM. Many hundreds of thousands of Jews benefited from this work and the lives of tens of thousands were affected by JCA's activities during the interwar years. Yet, in discussing the years following the rise of Hitler, Norman leaves unasked a most crucial question: To what extent did the JCA live up to the challenges that the growing crisis posed to the Jewish people? According to the figures provided by the author (Appendix C), JCA's assets on December 31, 1924 were still, in spite of heavy losses from prewar investments in German and other European securities, some £6 million (or some $24 million); JCA's income from capital during the crucial year 1938 was some £638,000 (or $3,005,000). The worldwide campaign of the Jewish National Fund provided the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency in that year some £884,304 ($4,166,000).3 The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee managed to raise in that year a sum of $4,021,641.4 Thus, JCA's assets, which did not depend on fund raising, were far in excess of those available to other international Jewish organizations. Did the leaders of the Association fully exploit this advantage to meet the emergency? This question remains unanswered. The JCA's central administration fled Paris in June 1940, and the war dealt its finances a further blow. When the fighting was over and the accounts settled, the balance sheet of December 1946 indicated assets valued at some £7 million (at the devalued rate). With the old European Jewish communities in ashes and the gates of most countries in the free world closed to Jews, the demise of JCA's activities in its traditional venues of operation was imminent. The author tells us, in the third part of his book, how JCA wound up its work in Argentina, Brazil and Canada and embarked on minor enterprises in such new locations as Morocco, Kenya, Ethiopia

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and Australia. The main chapter in this section, however, is devoted to JCA's work in Israel. True to its early preference for agriculture, JCA now supported, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency and other organizations, many moshavim (farming communities) and kibbutzim, and it contributed to the development of new areas of settlement in the Arava valley and the Galilee. This along with JCA's assistance to educational and cultural institutions in Israel made the new Jewish state the main area of JCA activity. Norman concludes his work with an important set of appendixes, a list of all JCA's presidents and council members, a table of rates of exchange for all relevant currencies from 1892 to 1981, and a review of JCA's accounts. From this last item we learn that although the nominal capital of JCA in 1981, some £9 million, was similar to the amount of funds at the organization's disposal at its peak in 1900, the real value of that capital was only 4 percent of what it had been at the turn of the century. What has JCA achieved during the ninety years of its history? To what extent has Baron de Hirsch's fortune been used to solve the real needs of the Jewish people? Theodore Norman's book provides us with much invaluable information in this regard, but it does not provide a definitive answer. Nevertheless, based mainly on published materials, his work is undoubtedly an indispensable starting point for the many detailed studies that JCA's history deserves. HAIM AVNI The Hebrew University

Notes 1. Haim Avni, Argentina, haarez haye'udah (Jerusalem: 1973); Argentina y la Historia de la Immigration Judia, 1810-1950 (Jerusalem and Buenos Aires: 1983): Emanzipazion vehinnukh yehudi (Jerusalem: 1985). 2. JCA, Recueil des materiaux sur la situation des Israelites de Russie, d'apres I'enquete de la JCA, 2 vols. (Paris: 1906). 3. Report of the Executive of the Zionist Organization and of the Jewish Agency, presented to the Twenty-First Zionist Congress, Geneva, August 1939 (Hebrew version, 149, 175). 4. Yehuda Bauer, My Brother's Keeper: A History of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1929-1939 (Philadelphia: 1974), 306.

Conor Cruise O'Brien, Siege. The Saga of Israel and Zionism. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. 798 pp. $24.95. Conor Cruise O'Brien has combined, with notable success, many occupations: politician, diplomat, academic, journalist, author. He has written widely, from the Katanga crisis (which he saw at first hand as a senior official of the United Nations)

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to Irish nationalism (a natural topic for an Irish Roman Catholic) to Albert Camus. Now he has focused his attention on the story of Jewish nationalism—and with telling effect. His saga (defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as "a story of heroic achievement of adventure") begins in 1880, with the birth of modern Zionism in Eastern Europe, and ends in 1985, with the National Unity Coalition government in Israel. He has managed to encompass in one volume an excellent introduction to this complex subject—judicious, discerning, sympathetic, a worthwhile read for expert and layman alike. O'Brien is clearly more at home in the post-1948 period—when he himself was an active participant in some of the events he describes—than in the earlier years. He overestimates, I fear, Jabotinsky's role as one of the "monumental figures" of Zionism, bracketing him together with Herzl, Weizmann and Ben-Gurion. Zionist politics and endeavor until the establishment of Israel in 1948, and for long beyond it, was dominated by the same personalities and coalition of forces that had led the movement since the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Jabotinsky played a marginal role in these affairs. A highly gifted publicist and orator of rare talent, he displayed poor political judgment and sadly botched his one real opportunity to sieze the leadership from Weizmann in 1931. Thereafter, his influence declined, even among Revisionists and Betar members, as he slowly became estranged from those more extreme than he, Begin included. Jabotinsky's contribution was ideological in nature. But even here there is more confusion than clarity, as can be seen by the manner in which his would-be heirs, of whom there are many, choose to interpret his political will—a debate that has heated up in contemporary Israel. Jabotinsky was a contradiction in terms: an extremist who held nineteenth-century liberal values. Paradoxical as it might sound, he had more in common with Weizmann, his great rival, than with those who are currently squabbling over his so-called legacy. At the same time, O'Brien tends to underplay Weizmann's role as leader of world Zionism (pp. 223-234, 230, 253-254). It is perfectly true that by the middle to late 1930s Weizmann no longer ruled absolutely over the movement, as he had during the 1920s. But his influence remained considerable, at times decisive, particularly over the crucial debate on partition, the key issue in Zionist politics from 1937-48. Ben-Gurion challenged him ceaselessly and harassed him without mercy but was unable to unseat him until the end of 1946. Too much has been made of the policy differences between Ben-Gurion and Weizmann, and O'Brien falls into the same trap (p. 254). In their political options both leaders were reined in by international events over which they had no control, and both knew it. Ben-Gurion dominated the politics of the Yishuv and through it assumed eventually the leadership of the movement as a whole. But this was a gradual process. In the field of Zionist diplomacy, there was no alternative to Weizmannism, as Ben-Gurion and Abba Silver discovered after they had deposed the old and sick leader. The years 194748, when Weizmann no longer held office, witnessed some of his greatest achievements and one can detect no great revolutionary turnabout in Zionist policy. O'Brien emphasizes, rightly, Weizmann's "astonishing achievement ... in 1920-22, in bringing about, in most unfavorable circumstances, the consummation of Zionist policies" (p. 150). Following the drama of the Balfour Declaration, these

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years (often overlooked) were vital for Zionism in gaining, through the Mandate, the legal basis necessary for establishing the National Home. The tide was now running strongly against Zionism, in government, parliament and public opinion. Yet, as O'Brien points out, Britain's pro-Zionist policy held, mainly as a result of Weizmann's lobbying—a spectacular triumph of truly historic dimensions. On the other hand, when discussing the British government's abandonment of partition in 1937-38 (pp. 227-237), O'Brien fails to give sufficient weight to the anti-Zionist forces at work in Whitehall. The Foreign Office, British officials throughout the Middle East, the Mandatory government, the Chiefs of Staff—all raised the spectre of Arab-Moslem hostility in the face of partition. This was a formidable combination, reappearing, in various guises, in 1944 and 1947 when partition was again on the public agenda, with the same disastrous results. The second part of the book—more than two-thirds in length—is devoted, mainly, to a succinct and admirable account of Israel's foreign policy—or rather lack of it. As Moshe Dayan put it, "Israel has no foreign policy, only a defence policy" (p. 508); later to be elaborated by Henry Kissinger, "Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic political system" (p. 530). The decisive event was the Six Day War and its inheritance—control over the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the lives of over 1 million Palestinian Arabs whose only wish is to escape from Israeli rule. O'Brien describes graphically the euphoria or, in his word, "hubris," of those days. There is a fine passage on Sadat's peace initiative of 1971 (pp. 508-521) and its rejection by the troika that was running Israeli foreign policy at the time: Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and Yizhak Rabin, leaving the foreign minister, Abba Eban, out in the cold. If only Israel's leaders had shown greater foresight. As it was, the consequences were incalculable: the Yom Kippur War. But history moves in mysterious ways. From the trauma of the war sprang Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy—of which O'Brien clearly approves—the disengagement agreements and eventually the Camp David Accords of 1978. O'Brien deals in some detail with the Likud governments of 1977-84; and in particular with the Lebanese adventure, concluding that "Sharon's Grand Design had collapsed in a welter of horrors" (p. 640), though he also has some tart comments to make about the biased press and television coverage of the war (pp. 632-637). Begin, he writes, was a victim of the war he had started, but chiefly of his "own appointment of Ariel Sharon as Minister of Defence" (p. 631). Some might add that Begin was not so much a victim of the war he had started as the war he had lost. And what of the future? There is no happy end to O'Brien's story. He sees little alternative to the siege that began in Eastern Europe in the 1880s continuing into the foreseeable future. The thorniest problem, of course, is the future of the West Bank and Gaza. O'Brien is not impressed with the so-called moderate elements among Palestinian nationalists. Quoting an Arab scholar, an expert on the nuances of the "moderate rejectionist" debate in the PLO, he concludes that the Palestinian state "these moderates seek to establish on any part of Palestinian land to be liberated, would be dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state" (p. 548). In Israel, too, he detects a consolidation of the extremist, no-compromise forces, relying for

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evidence on the election results of 1977, 1981 and 1984 that raised the Likud, and its ultra-religious chauvinist allies, to positions of great political strength and left Israel split over its future (p. 650-656). The explanation for this phenomenon is attributed to the drift of Oriental voters away from the Labour alignment to the Likud, a process that has now developed into "a quasi-permanent feature" of Israeli political life (p. 650). This analysis has become the conventional wisdom for many Israeli political scientists and, apparently, for many Israel-watchers also. There is undeniably an ethnic divide in Israeli voting habits, but it is not the only factor. Educational achievement, an equalizing of occupational opportunities and earning ability and an upward social mobility are no less important and may prove in the long run to be even more decisive. If this is so, all may not be lost for the Labour alignment and its allies. It is too early yet to pass final judgment. In this connection, one can only repeat the well-known saying, "The only certain thing about the Middle East—including Israel—is its uncertainty." And surely this applies equally to the peace process and its problems. Since the publication of O'Brien's book, the concept of an international conference has been floated to break the deadlock. Another diplomatic kite to be unceremoniously shot down? Or a real way out of the impasse? Who knows? Perhaps, when the second edition of Siege is published, O'Brien will tell us, in a revised epilogue. Until then, we shall have to be satisfied with this compelling, informative and readable history of the diplomacy of the Zionist movement and the foreign policy of Israel. NORMAN ROSE The Hebrew University

Raphael Patai, Nahum Goldmann: His Missions to the Gentiles. University: University of Alabama Press, 1986. vii + 315 pp. In the gallery of Zionist leadership, Nahum Goldmann will always appear as an interesting and engaging personality, rich material for a biographer as well as for an imaginative novelist. Goldmann, no doubt aware of his attraction to future writers, supplied them in 1969 with a one-volume autobiography, The Autobiography of Nahum Goldmann, Sixty Years of Jewish Life. Ten years later, he published a greatly expanded, two-volume autobiography entitled, Mein Leben als Deutscher Jude. The recent work of Raphael Patai does not purport to be a biography. Rather, it is "the story of three ideas" central to Goldmann's life's work: the partition of Palestine and the subsequent establishment of the State of Israel, the reparations payments by Germany after the Holocaust to individual Jews and to Israel and the scheme for setting up a Near Eastern Confederation (to include Israel). Although the first quarter of the book is devoted to Goldmann's youth, affording valuable insight

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into the formation of his personality, the remainder deals with these three central ideas. All three involve Jewish relations with the gentile world—hence Patai's title. This is a well-written and highly readable book. The author has had the advantage of a long personal association with Goldmann, and to a certain extent this book was written in close collaboration with its subject. Patai draws extensively on Goldmann 's two autobiographies, but he seems to overlook recent scholarship. As the reader progresses through his account, the impression gradually deepens that the author has assimilated his hero's views. Taking up first the story of the German reparations, Patai convincingly argues that Goldmann's role in securing the reparations was crucial. A great deal of documentation is introduced to demonstrate Goldmann's considerable skill and ability as a negotiator. The successful outcome of the reparations talks, which Patai credits, in part, to the rapport Goldmann established with Chancellor Adenauer, proved to be a great boon to Israel's fledgling economy and afforded some relief to tens of thousands of individual victims of Nazi persecution. Patai next advances the thesis that Goldmann's staunch support for the partition of Palestine, as recommended in 1937 by the Peel Commission, was a major factor leading to the eventual establishment of a Jewish state. Contrary to the author's contention that the World Zionist Congress rejected the partition plan, that body, in fact, empowered the Zionist Executive "to negotiate with the British Government to clarify the specific terms of the British proposal to establish a Jewish state in Palestine." This was a vote for partition and was so viewed by the British and Jewish leaders. Yet, Goldmann blamed the Zionist movement for what he termed "a major sin of our generation" and felt that partition might have been implemented in 1937 had the Zionists not "rejected" the British proposal. Patai echoes this assessment when he attributes the Zionist position to "the obstinacy and fanaticism of a persecuted people"—qualities that Goldmann alone, apparently, did not share. Recent scholarship had determined, however, that it was the British Foreign Office that, against the wishes of the Colonial Office, yielded to Arab pressure and gave up the partition scheme. Patai is on firmer ground in relating the dramatic events of 1946-47. The Jewish Agency Executive met in Paris in August 1946 because those members who were in Palestine were then under arrest by the British authorities. At the time, the Morrison-Grady plan—partition without statehood—was being put forward jointly by the Americans and the British. Although Ben-Gurion urged the executive to agree only to "discuss" partition if offered, Goldmann persuaded the body to declare its support for partition on the grounds that this would clear the way to establish "a viable Jewish state in an adequate area of Palestine." Then, with this resolution in hand, Goldmann proceeded to Washington, where in five days he met repeatedly with Dean Acheson, other members of the American cabinet, the British ambassador and other officials. Although sympathetic, the Americans proved unwilling to pressure the British. Goldmann misjudged both the extent of American support and the lengths to which some top State Department officials would go to block further steps toward Jewish statehood. Yet, as Zvi Ganin

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has argued (Patai relies heavily on his work), Goldmann's mission succeeded in making the partition concept more familiar within American political circles. One direct benefit of the trip was the agreement by the president of the American Jewish Committee, Joseph Proskauer, to support the principle of statehood. At the Zionist Congress held in December 1946 in Basle, responsibility for contacts with American government circles was entrusted to Abba Hillel Silver, who thus played a major role in the crucial months leading up to the UN partition resolution of November 27, 1947, and during the critical weeks preceding Israel's independence, the following May. Silver and Chaim Weizmann clearly played the primary roles here, and Patai is unconvincing when he claims that "without Goldmann's work the State of Israel would not have been born on May 14, 1948." This claim is certainly not substantiated by the record (as anyone can judge, e.g., from a document dated May 6, 1948, in Volume 5 of U.S. Foreign Relations, [pp. 920923]). Patai does not cite this or other volumes in the series; neither does he seem to have consulted records of dispatches from the British Embassy in Washington to London. Had he done so, his evaluation of Goldmann's role would have been more balanced. During the last fifteen years of his life, Goldmann grew perceptibly estranged from the Zionist movement and the State of Israel. His article in Foreign Affairs of March 1970, in which he called for a neutral Israel "under the permanent protection of the whole of humanity," caused consternation in Zionist-Israeli circles (as did some of his other statements, which he generally claimed were quoted out of context) and lost him the presidency of the World Zionist Organization. News of his unauthorized proposals to foreign statesmen, regarding a Near Eastern Confederation of states and other ideas, fueled a growing distrust in the Israeli government (some of which is reflected in Moshe Sharett's diaries). Patai appears to contradict the evidence he himself produces on the notorious row between Goldmann and Golda Meir when he supports Goldmann's version of the affair. Goldmann, having arranged an invitation to Egypt to speak to President Nasser, denied that Nasser had made such a visit conditional on the Israeli government's express authorization and accused Meir of a "deliberately false representation" when she insisted otherwise. Even those who defend Goldmann's version will find Patai's suggestion that Sadat's trip to Jerusalem seven years later "was facilitated by his knowledge of the willingness of Nasser to meet Goldmann" rather farfetched. Herbert Blankenhorn, a close associate of Adenauer, observed that Goldmann, "with his cosmopolitan lifestyle, would not be happy in the somewhat narrow circumstances" of Israel. Whether or not this was so may perhaps best be judged by something Goldmann said of himself, speaking in 1980, "The world can be accepted on an aesthetic basis only if you see it as a work of art, . . . [and] don't take it too seriously. . . . This really is my Weltanschauung." This is a side of Goldmann that we do not see in Patai's book. S. ZALMAN ABRAMOV Jerusalem

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Arnold Paucker (ed.), with Sylvia Gilchrist and Barbara Study, Die Juden im Nationalsozialistischen Deutschland/The Jews in Nazi Germany, 19331943. Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986. 409 pp.

This volume is based on the proceedings of a conference held in Berlin between October 28 and 31, 1985, under the auspices of the Leo Baeck Institute. The twenty-five articles—revised and edited versions of the papers presented at the conference—focus on the conditions of Jewish life in Nazi Germany, which Dr. Leo Baeck, rabbi of Berlin and leader of German Jewry during those tragic years, had summed up as early as 1933, "The thousand-year-long history of the German Jews has come to an end." Perhaps the outstanding message of the research presented here is that, at least until the pogrom of November 1938 (the Kristallnachi), German Jews unceasingly sought ways to continue their communal and individual existence as Jews. This collection of articles is especially important as no comprehensive monograph dealing with German Jews in the Third Reich has yet been published. We have before us an indication that the time is ripe for a definitive, balanced monograph. Should this challenge be too great for a single historian, a team comprising both Jewish and non-Jewish scholars could be created, thereby ensuring a more balanced treatment than that presented by the volume under review. The material is arranged in three sections, the first of which deals in great detail with Jews in the Weimar Republic. The second section, "Emancipation Revoked," is the most detailed and perhaps the most important part of the volume, analyzing the deterioration of Jewish life in the years 1933-38. The final section bears the title "Destruction" but could perhaps have been more aptly called "Toward Destruction." In his introductory essay, "The Beginning of the End," Peter Pulzer surveys the danger signals that should have warned German Jews before 1933 of the impending catastrophe. Pulzer's thesis is that the Jews under-estimated the threat of a Nazi rise to power because they had become acclimatized to antisemitic discrimination over a period of many years. They neither deluded themselves with respect to the German Jewish symbiosis nor placed great confidence in German Idealism; they did believe, however, that the experience gained from their past confrontations with classical right-wing antisemitism would once again stand them in good stead. Pulzer believes that only after the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 did it dawn on many of Germany's Jews that Hitler was seriously intent on making Germany judenrein, but even then they did not imagine that this entailed physical destruction. Peter Gay argues that although there were many Jews who practiced the tenets of Orthodoxy in Weimar Germany, German Jewry as a whole was steeped in German culture. German Jews felt at home and knew full well that there were two Germanics, and they cannot be blamed for believing that the better of the two, which they themselves represented to a great extent, would prevail. Werner E. Mosse describes the growing social estrangement between Jews and non-Jews during the Weimar period, accompanied paradoxically by a rapidly increasing rate of mixed marriages. Another paradox that did not augur well for the future of German Jewry

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was that the higher levels of the bureaucracy were to a great extent closed to Jews despite their nominal equality before the law. After 1922 they did not play any significant role in German political life; judges in the Weimar courts were very lenient when dealing with cases of anti-Jewish violence. Mosse believes that German Jews should have foreseen the troubled times ahead of them as early as 1930. In his article "Jiidische Abwehr," Arnold Paucker draws our attention to the controversy within German Zionism: Should priority be given to Palestinocentrism or to anti-fascism? Paucker claims that about two thousand Jews in Germany were engaged in some form of active anti-Nazi activity even after 1933, ranging from clandestine propaganda to sabotage of the German war effort. The patterns of Jewish self-defence that developed during the Weimar period, Paucker believes, continued to function at least during the first years of the Third Reich. Reinhard Riirup contributes an analysis of anti-Jewish policies in Germany until the Second World War. He surveys the disagreement among historians between those who believe that a direct line leads from anti-Jewish repressive measures in the 1930s to the planned systematic annihilation of the Jewish people and those who argue that the Final Solution was arrived at by a more indirect route. He also discusses the question of whether rivalry among various government organs and perhaps also the conflicting interests of organizations and individuals in the Reich and the Nazi party influenced the tempo and stages by which Jews were excluded from the political, economic, cultural and social life of Germany until their deportation eastward to the death camps. Riirup emphasizes that no one could have doubted Nazi intentions and that one must not overlook the widespread concurrence in conservative circles, higher levels of the bureaucracy and the churches with the measures adopted to abolish Jewish equality before the law, and to ultimately rid Germany of the "destructive Jewish influence." He argues that even though antiJewish legislation was not implemented uniformly throughout Germany, by 1939 the process of stripping German Jews of all their rights had been completed. In "Jewish Autonomy within the Limits of National Socialist Policy," Herbert A. Strauss concludes that even when the authorities permitted Jewish autonomous organization, "the final solution to the presence of Jews in Germany was always present" (p. 125). This was true even when the tactical needs and the broader requirements of foreign policy, economics and rearmament temporarily limited the execution of this policy, that is, expulsion of the Jews from German society. Jewish pseudo-autonomy during the first six years of the Third Reich was a cynical tactic dictated by the need of Germany for relatively tranquil Jewish communal life until such time as the Nazi authorities could implement their plans without damage to themselves. Strauss presents us with a detailed survey of the establishment of the Reichsvertretung and of the efforts made by Jewish organizations, which dated from the pre-Nazi period, to provide solutions both through emigration and by creating conditions in which Jews could best continue to live under Nazi rule. The author concludes that the leadership of German Jewry during 1933-38 exhibited a great measure of resourcefulness, though it probably did not fully comprehend the severity and the pace of developments that were but stages toward the total annihilation of German Jewry. Avraham Barkai's article on the economic struggle for survival of German Jews

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traces the exclusion of the Jews from the German economy. Economic pressure and physical violence rather than legal sanctions were the means used to expel Jews from the economy in the first years of the Reich. By 1938 only nine thousand businesses remained in Jewish hands out of the fifty thousand such firms that existed in 1932, and there were sixty thousand Jewish unemployed in the spring of 1938. Legislation was but the final stage in the Nazi scheme to exclude Jews from the economic sphere. Two further articles, one by A. J. Sherman on the Warburg Bank and the other David Kramer's "Jewish Welfare Work Under the Impact of Pauperisation," round out the discussions of the destruction of the Jewish economy in Nazi Germany. In "Jewish Education for Spiritual Resistance," Joseph Walk describes the creation of a Jewish school system in Germany that taught about 24,000 pupils in 1937. This system was characterized by an increasing orientation toward the values of Jewish nationalism, Hebrew and the history and geography of Eretz Israel. Herbert Freeden surveys Jewish cultural activity until 1938, describing the plight of Jewish artists permitted to perform "for Jews only," fearing intellectual isolation and longing for traditional German culture yet, at the same time, making great efforts to provide Jewish content for their audiences, many of whom were alienated from these themes. Rita Thalmann draws our attention to changes in the roles and status of Jewish women after Kristallnacht. Until that time, women had generally been spared violence, but from late 1938 the Nazis did not differentiate in their treatment of men and women. Thalmann shows that it was precisely in these difficult times that many women became the main breadwinners of their families, with many also participating in communal support efforts. A few young women, in addition, managed to survive the war as members of resistance groups. An exceptionally important contribution to this volume was made by Abraham Margaliot, who passed away shortly after its publication. In "Emigration— Planung und Wirklichkeit," he notes that the German Jewish leadership tried to stop emigration both in 1933 and 1938. Even after the November 1938 pogrom, when there could no longer be any illusions as to the fate of German Jewry, the communal leadership still stressed "planned emigration." Despite his veiled criticism of this emphasis on "planning," Margaliot underlines the considerable efforts made by the communal organs of German Jewry, efforts that did allow for the orderly emigration of about 235,000 out of Germany's 520,000 Jews before the outbreak of the Second World War. Otto D. Kulka deals with the central, Nazi-controlled Jewish organization of the years 1939-43, the Reichsvereinigung. Basing his research on the archives of the Reichsvereinigung, today in East Berlin, he claims that the accepted image of this organization as a puppet of the Gestapo is mistaken and that despite the Gestapo's close supervision and constant pressure, the Reichsvereinigung continued to deal with matters of education, vocational training and social welfare even as mass deportations took place. Kulka further claims that the organization even managed to maintain a degree of independence from the Gestapo. Kulka's arguments aroused a good deal of debate and disagreement at the conference. From this debate, and from the relative paucity of this latter section of the volume dealing with the years 1939-

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43, it is clear that the study of German Jewry during these years requires much further work. MENAHEM KAUFMAN The Hebrew University

Leon Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism, Volume IV; Suicidal Europe, 18701933. Translated from the French by George Klin. Oxford: Oxford University Press/Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1985. 422 pp.

In this fourth volume of his monumental history of antisemitism, Leon Poliakov reexamines the crucial gestation period after 1870 that laid the foundations for the ravages that would follow, especially after 1918. In particular the book analyzes three major strands in modern antisemitism: the development of racial theories among intellectuals in Germany and their propagation abroad; the extension by the Vatican and the Catholic Church (especially in France) of its earlier campaigns against the Freemasons to the Jews and Judaism; finally, Poliakov demonstrates how the Tsarist regime held the Jews responsible for the revolutionary agitation in the Russian Empire. The collapse of Tsarism and the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution, with conspicuous Jewish figures in the top Communist leadership, sowed panic and hysteria not only among the Russian Whites but also in France, Britain and the United States. Poliakov focuses considerable attention on the impact of the Jewish-Bolshevik myth in the Anglo-Saxon countries, though admitting that it had only a marginal influence on public life by the 1930s. On the other hand, he is most sparing about the implantation of the same myth in Germany and Austria (not to mention Eastern Europe), one of the many surprising omissions in this interesting but deeply flawed book. Poliakov's discussion of antisemitism in the Germanic lands before 1914 is heavily weighted toward intellectual and literary sources at the expense of any serious discussion of socioeconomic and political structures. Unfortunately, even here, on his own chosen ground, Poliakov adds nothing new to the standard accounts dating back two decades or more. His discussion seems like a truncated popular version of the well-known works by Wawrzinek, Massing, Pulzer and Norman Cohn, one that ignores more recent and important writings that have sought to explain the rise and decline of antisemitic parties in Wilhelminian Germany. To give a few examples: Poliakov seems unfamiliar with the theses of Richard S. Levy, Shulamit Volkov, Geoffrey Field, Jacob Katz and a number of German historians who have worked on this period. With regard to Austria-Hungary, the account is extremely sketchy and even more inadequate, failing to explain why antisemitism succeeded in Vienna and attained such virulence elsewhere in the Dual Monarchy. Here again, Poliakov relies on works published twenty years ago and the discussion has a faded, outdated quality. Much the same can be said of the impressionistic remarks on post-1918 anti-

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semitism in the Weimar Republic, in which Hitler and the Nazi movement are barely even mentioned! We are treated instead to a rehash of the influence of Russian emigres on the early Nazis in Munich (based on Laqueur's book published in 1965) to highly questionable remarks by Golo Mann and a digression on the German physicist Werner Heisenberg (scarcely an antisemite) that struck this reviewer as essentially irrelevant. Even more astonishing is the total absence of Eastern Europe from this book. Not a single word about the ravages of antisemitism in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia or the Baltic lands that might as well not have existed as far as Poliakov is concerned. Incredibly, in the preface we come across the following sentence by way of explanation, "However, for a book entitled Suicidal Europe, the study of the development of the Arab mentality [sic] or the distress of Polish and Romanian Jews during the first third of this century does not seem crucial, since the die was cast elsewhere" (p. vii). Whether Eastern Europe was decisive in the development of modern antisemitism can certainly be debated, but the whole subject cannot simply be ignored in this cavalier manner. Comprend quipeut! Furthermore, if the specific weight of antisemitism is the criterion, then it is inexplicable why Poliakov should devote two long chapters to Britain and the United States (not particularly insightful at that, or even grounded in the relevant literature)—by his own admission, these played a marginal role in the dissemination of Judeophobia. Nearly a quarter of the book is devoted to France, which, though quite disproportionate, is perhaps understandable for a work aimed in the first instance at the French-speaking public. What Poliakov writes here is unexceptional and essentially derivative with regard to the pre-1914 period. He does, however, provide some valuable insights into French attitudes toward the Jews between 1914 and 1933, drawn from literary and journalistic sources. One of the more interesting aspects of his discussion is the extent of French Catholic antagonism (mirroring that of the Vatican) toward Zionism. The best chapters in the book (and this constitutes its one real contribution) deal with Tsarist Russia and the fallout from the Bolshevik Revolution. In this area Poliakov has succeeded in digging up some important sources and emigre memoirs. He helps to clarify the role of the Tsar, his entourage, the Okhrana (political police) and the Black Hundreds in the spread of Russian antisemitism. Poliakov also convincingly conveys the atmosphere of panic engendered in the West between 1917 and 1921 by the Bolshevik triumph and the ways in which Western elites were infected for a time with the belief in a malevolent Jewish conspiracy. This issue that has been neglected in historical literature is certainly of central importance and Poliakov was right to devote attention to it. But the obsession with "Jewish Bolshevism" was to prove of decisive significance not in the West but in Germany and Austria as well as Hungary, Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, on this fateful influence, which might profitably have been the axis of his book, Poliakov has nothing useful to say. ROBERT S. WJSTRICH The Hebrew University

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Dina Porat, Hanhagah bemilkud (Leadership in a Trap). Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1986. 569 pp. This work provides for the first time a reliable and comprehensive account of the Yishuv's efforts to keep track of the fate of the Jews of Nazi-dominated Europe, its reactions to what it learned and the steps taken by its leaders in the face of the Holocaust. Thus, the book connects events in Palestine with the European catastrophe, showing both the inter-relatedness of the Jewish fate in Europe and in the Yishuv as well as the gulf that divided them. Porat unfolds a broad canvas, covering developments in the Zionist, Jewish and international spheres. This provides a perspective from which to judge the responses of the Palestinian public and its leaders in their frustrating straggle to find solutions. The decision-making process is discussed in terms of the information that reached the Yishuv, the way this was understood and what impact it made. The leaders of the Yishuv are depicted neither as unable to grasp properly what was happening and correctly assess its significance nor as passive in the face of so much suffering and death. In the author's opinion, despite their sincere anguish and deep emotional commitment, the Yishuv leaders faced the situation with a large dose of realism, weighing up what action, if any, it was within their power to take. Amid acrimonious debate and internal criticism, they considered all relevant factors and chose a rational course of action. Porat sheds light on the way in which differences in personal approach influenced the formulation of rival proposals, even when all were agreed on what the objective should be. In the final analysis, however, the author argues that the manner in which the leaders evaluated the courses of action open to them and the way in which they understood their own role, produced a record of accomplishments that was not very impressive. To a large extent, the possibilities for action were determined by the objective situation: the Yishuv's dependence on the Allies, Britain's White Paper policy and the other political considerations that the Yishuv—not yet a state but a state-in-the-making—had to take into account. Thus, the concrete measures adopted included: working toward the implementation of the Biltmore Program (calling for Jewish statehood), mobilization for the war effort and continued settlement and development activity in Palestine. The leadership came to the conclusion that a major rescue effort was impossible without the cooperation of the Allies; and the latter could not be persuaded to undertake such an effort. "Small" rescue operations, for all their inherent importance, could not take the place of other, central aspects of the Yishuv's war effort. The development of the Yishuv had to be maintained if its postwar existence was to be assured. Only if this condition were met could Palestine Jewry hope to be in a position to absorb the survivors and refugees after the war (pp. 489-490). In Porat's view, the leadership was caught in a trap. The Jewish Agency Executive was duty-bound to safeguard the development of the Yishuv, bring it to the point of being able to take in the survivors and to fight for its political future. This meant preserving political relations with the major powers. But most of those for whom these efforts were being made would not survive the war. Without its own,

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independent military and political capability, the Yishuv could only achieve a small-scale rescue (p. 492). In adopting this argument, Porat extends and deepens the conception of "the Jewish people's objective helplessness" voiced previously by Yehuda Bauer (The Holocaust—Historical Aspects [Tel-Aviv: 1982]). What Porat contributes here is an understanding of how the element of choice operated within this framework of objective constraint. The Yishuv leaders consciously and deliberately decided that the Zionist enterprise must go forward even in the face of the Holocaust. This is, of course, a sensitive topic. It is difficult even today to evaluate the moral dilemmas posed by the Holocaust. Porat, who is well aware of this, does not oversimplify the issues, indeed, at times she succeeds in demonstrating their fundamental difficulty, intimating that there are limits to comprehension and generalization. Her extensive and graceful use of literary and poetic materials helps to bring this point across, and the inclusion of contemporary newspaper cartoons helps the reader (and herself) to cope with the distress, self-criticism and irony elicited by the counterpoint between the European and Palestinian stories. The first part of the book shows the difficulties that the Yishuv and its leaders experienced in trying to fathom the meaning of the information reaching them. Even after the full picture emerged, and it became clear that the Final Solution was a planned, systematic policy of exterminating all the Jews of Europe, it remained essentially difficult to grasp such facts. There was a natural clinging to the hope that "perhaps," but "perhaps not. . . ." The decisions reached at the end of 1942 make it clear, however, that the fate of the Jews of Europe was a new factor in the calculations shaping the policy of the Yishuv. This section goes on to deal with the formation of the Rescue Committee, representing the entire range of opinion in the Yishuv (including the Revisionists and Agudat Israel). The Rescue Committee was not given real authority for independent action, precisely because the Executive considered rescue policy too important to be entrusted to another public body lacking an overall grasp of Zionist policy. The author also discusses the relations with Jewish communities abroad and the efforts of the Yishuv to mobilize the Diaspora agencies. That the Yishuv felt it ought to assume overall responsibility and leadership in the Jewish world was, Porat finds, a sign of its growing political maturity. Finally, Porat discusses the debate over fund raising for rescue work, in which the struggle over priorities was brought to the fore. She relates how the financial means for funding rescue activity were amassed and what share each of the major national institutions—the Jewish Agency Executive, the Histadrat, the Zionist Executive Committee and the Va'ad Leumi—had in the campaign. The book's second section deals with the various rescue projects of the Yishuv, organized by bodies and institutions expressly set up for this purpose in neutral countries, in conjunction with the Allied powers. Porat distinguishes between attempts to get Jews out by exchange programs and immigration certificates, on the one hand, and the ransom projects, on the other hand, which she discusses at length: the Transnistria plan, the Europa plan and the so-called "goods for blood'' plan that received the most publicity and has been the focus of much research. The reader is provided here with a wealth of facts and exposition illustrating the

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main thesis outlined earlier: the internalization and comprehension of reality—not through declarations or attempts at large-scale activities, but through operative responses to real or apparent possibilities of rescue. The ransom affairs show in detail the extent of the Yishuv's dependence on the Allies and its search for ways to act more independently. For the leadership of the Yishuv, however, all such attempts seemed to prove that for Zionism and the entire Jewish people there was no alternative but cooperation with the Allies. The sense of partnership and identification with the democracies is shown to have been a deterrent in such cases as the proposal (put forward by the Polish government-in-exile) to ask the Allies to bomb German cities and take punitive measures against Germans in Allied hands (p. 267). In this case, as in others, the Yishuv leaders opposed a policy that could be termed radical, both because they did not believe in its effectiveness and because they felt they could not come out with war aims that differed from those of the Allies. Contrary to the efforts in the United States of Hillel Kook and the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe, the leadership of the Yishuv opposed any action beyond quiet diplomacy in persuading the Allied governments to support a rescue policy (pp. 480-481). The third and final section of the book sums up the central questions and moral dilemmas related to Zionist rescue policy. Here, the author sometimes appears to reach conclusions that go beyond what her more balanced narrative and analysis warrant. This may reflect the special difficulty the historian faces in drawing up an objective balance sheet on this period. Her distress, that we share, over the fact that no adequate Jewish response involving large-scale rescue was found gives the entire summation a chilling tone. Although this study has demonstrated that the share of the Yishuv in the effort to rescue Jews was incomparably larger than that of other Jewish communities, and that the actions carried out by the Yishuv (numbering only some half-million people) were equivalent to those undertaken by all the rest of the Jewish free world combined, neither the author nor the reader can escape the sense that the leadership and the Yishuv as a whole did not sufficiently break out of its set mold in response to extraordinary circumstances. Neither ideological disputes nor personal conflicts were set aside for the duration. Political considerations determined who would head the Rescue Committee. Leaders of the caliber of Berl Katznelson and Yitzhak Tabenkin were not recruited to take charge of rescue attempts or to mobilize the Jewish world for rescue. No authoritative representative was sent to Spain, Portugal or Sweden. Chaim Weizmann met the president of the United States on three occasions and did not raise the fate of the Jews of Europe even once. And yet, such facts do not contradict the basic thesis and the lengthy analysis offered in this study. In considering the place of "small rescue" on the Zionist agenda (p. 489), Porat finds that Ben-Gurion and his associates put rescue on a par with—but not above— the needs of the Yishuv. This, in effect, left "small rescue" in fourth place, after settlement, defense, immigration and development. The despatch of parcels and certificates, illegal border crossings and the like did not require the permanent presence of a member of the Executive in Constantinople or the assignment of topflight officials to dangerous missions in Europe. Because large-scale rescue seemed

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out of the question, the order of priorities remained what it had been before 1942. Porat finds that rescue remained marginal to the leadership's agenda (p. 489). Yet, this is something of an overstatement. Though perhaps not at the center of the leadership's activity, rescue was surely not marginal; a quarter of Jewish Agency funds were devoted to rescue, as was a third of the mobilization and rescue fund. This shows the importance attached to these actions despite their small scale and the impossibility of rescuing millions or even tens of thousands. It therefore seems to me that it is necessary to distinguish between rescue activities planned by the Yishuv mainly for its own implementation and those meant to be carried out by the Allies (even though initiated by the Yishuv). In the nature of things, the latter were planned on a larger scale. The smaller efforts that were organized and set in motion in 1942—such as the activities of the clandestine aliyah operation in Europe (the Mosad le'aliyah)—were of real importance and derived from the Zionist-inspired affirmation of the value of positive action in the face of helplessness and loss of direction, to which Porat alludes in her book. If was not despair of rescue but faith in the rescue of the Jewish people through the fulfillment of the Zionist idea that made it possible to lay down the order of priorities described herein. This faith also made "small rescue" obligatory, even essential. Indeed, Porat's study shows how persistently the Yishuv leaders pursued such efforts as the parachutists plan and clandestine aliyah. These were set in motion in 1942 (even if they bore fruit only in 1944 when political conditions were more favorable) and thus predate a time when there was cause to despair of major rescue operations. I would also demur from Porat's attempt to posit a difference in approach and sense of responsibility between the Agency leadership (Ben-Gurion in particular) and the Palestinian public (p. 488). The Executive acted for rescue and clandestine aliyah through the Yishuv and by harnessing human and financial resources in the Yishuv through non-conventional structures. One detects behind Porat's conclusion the unspoken question, "Why did you not make rescue the top priority? Even if it hadn't worked, our conscience would have been lighter." This leads her into a judgmental and apologetic mode, in spite of the fact that throughout her book she has taken care to explain the Yishuv's policy as the product of a serious consideration of the fate of European Jewry. "Small rescue" provided the Yishuv's leaders with the means to maintain a constructive frame of mind, on which the continuation of Zionist tasks depended, even while the Diaspora was being destroyed all around them. Had it not been for these rescue operations, it would have been impossible to believe that a way would be found when the war ended to reach the survivors. Rescue expressed faith in the vision of a great Jewish people that would go on shaping its own history in spite of what happened in the Holocaust. Moreover, although news of the Holocaust (still not fully assimilated in 194244) did not change the essential faith of the Zionist leadership, it did alter some of their basic ideas. They were prepared—in contrast to their hitherto singleminded focus on aliyah—also to entertain the idea of schemes directing emigration to destinations other than Palestine, provided that they promised at least a chance for Jews to leave Europe. (Thus, e.g., they reacted positively to Horthy's offer of July 1944 and were willing to see refugees interned in Mauritania in 1940). As for Ben-

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Gurion, a decisive change in his thinking took place when instead of the selective immigration gradually implemented in the 1930s he called for mass immigration and the establishment of temporary camps in Palestine—and he had many supporters (Jewish Agency Executive session, June 20, 1944). This said, Dina Porat's principal conclusions remain valid. Her fascinating study makes a very special contribution from which all her readers will profit. DALIA OFER The Hebrew University

Giinter von Roden, Geschichte der Duisburger Juden, 2vols. Duisburg: Duisburger Forschungen, Bd. 34, Walter Braun Verlag, 1986. 1,535 pp. This volume, a history of the Jews of Duisburg, is perhaps the most detailed study of any single Jewish community in Germany. It was commissioned by the municipal authorities of a city that counted Jews among its residents for eight centuries until the community was annihilated by the Nazis, and it is published as part of a series documenting the history of Duisburg. The author directed the municipal archives from 1955 to 1976, a fact that has left its mark on the book, which is a compilation of all and any information on the Jews of Duisburg available in or outside Germany. In preparing this monumental work, von Roden had three objectives in mind: (1) to record for posterity the story of an eight hundred-year-old Jewish community that was completely destroyed, (2) to show that the history of Duisburg's Jews is an integral part of the annals of that city and (3) to remind contemporary German readers that Jews came to Germany to seek a home many centuries ago and that much time elapsed before they became "German Jews." Their fate was especially tragic because they were murdered not by a foreign enemy invading their homeland but by their fellow citizens and neighbors, by those whom they mistakenly considered to be their friends. The author's earliest evidence of a Jewish presence in Duisburg dates from 1160, and von Roden devotes some seventy pages to a survey of Duisburg Jewry from the mid-twelfth century until 1847, when the community numbered about one hundred. In a chapter on the second half of the nineteenth century, von Roden focuses mainly on the internal organization of the Jewish community and its financial difficulties, characterizing this period as one in which attempts by the local authorities to further Jewish emancipation, on the one hand, were countered by a pattern of antisemitic incitement by individuals, on the other. A description of the last thirty years preceding Hitler's rise to power concludes the general historical survey, highlighting internal friction within the community involving "liberal Jews," Zionists and Ostjuden. With the outbreak of the First World War, the Zionists and the Centralverein tried to outdo one another in expressions of loyalty to the German homeland, defender of

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human civilization against the invading Cossacks and victim of France and England, which had joined forces in an attempt "to strangle the country in whose breast beats the heart of European civilization" (p. 103). It would seem that few primary sources dealing with Duisburg Jewry during the war period were available and in their stead the author assumes that the general Jewish experience of German antisemitism during the war is applicable also to his own city. The section dealing with the Weimar Republic is replete with detailed descriptions of antisemitic attacks against the Jews of Duisburg. At the same time, von Roden catalogues developments within the Jewish community—for example the centennial celebration of the Duisburg synagogue in 1926, the establishment of the Jewish school in 1927 and internal elections in 1928—in which the Zionists achieved considerable success. His survey of this period is a chronological description with little attempt at analysis. ' 'Oppression and Destruction in the Third Reich'' is the title of the most important chapter in the book for scholars of the Holocaust in Germany. From von Roden's description of anti-Jewish acts during the first months of Nazi rule we can see the manner in which Jews became targets of popular violent outbursts despite the protection promised by the authorities. Even before the anti-Jewish boycott on April 1, 1933, organizations of vested middle-class interests too—such as the Kampfbund fur den gewerblichen Mittelstand and groups of Nazi lawyers and doctors—took steps to restrict the activities of their Jewish "competitors." The Nuremberg Laws had serious repercussions in Duisburg, as throughout all of Germany. From time to time, city officials added local initiatives to the instructions that came from the central authorities. Among the developments that the author notes within the Jewish community during 1935-38 are economic difficulties that reached a level at which the community could no longer help those in need of social welfare, the growing number of suicides and the unsuccessful attempts by many to emigrate to nearby Holland. In his description of events in 1938, von Roden notes that the letter J was stamped into passports of Jews at the request of the Swiss government, but that the Germans were quick to adopt the idea and affixed that letter to the identity cards that Jews were then obliged to carry. He provides us with a detailed description of the expulsion of "Polish Jews" from Duisburg to Poland a short while before the infamous Kristallnacht, the November pogrom, during which one Duisburg Jew was murdered and many wounded. The author's documentation of the pogrom in Duisburg lists the Jewish victims by name, describes what happened to each during the rioting and reproduces the local Nazi news reports. To further clarify the situation of Duisburg's Jews for the reader, von Roden lists two full pages of the restrictions to which they were subject by the end of 1938. After the Kristallnacht, the Jews of Duisburg sensed their imminent deportation to concentration camps. The local rabbi asked a Protestant clergyman to take care of the Jewish cemeteries, should such be the case. On December 31, 1938, the Nationalzeitung, the local Nazi newspaper, declared Duisburg's business world to be judenrein. Two aspects of Jewish life in the town after the pogrom of November 1938 are minutely detailed: attempts at emigration and the concentration of Jews in

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Judenhauser. The character of the Reichsvereinigung and the question of whether its functions were similar to those of the Judenrdte a few years later are dealt with here in a local setting. Of the 3,176 Jews who lived in greater Duisburg in 1930, only 841 were left on October 10, 1939. Within the limitations of available documentation, von Roden tries to describe the implementation of the Final Solution as it related to the Jews of Duisburg. One of the most disturbing documents is a three-page report by the Transportfiihrer der Schutzpolizei, a certain Salitter, describing a deportation, including Duisburg Jews, from the Ruhr region on December 26, 1941. The author complements Salitter's report with the evidence of one of the survivors of this transport to Riga. From a detailed count, we know that 1,051 of Duisburg's Jews were put to death during the Holocaust period. In addition to the general historical surveys, von Roden's massive book includes, for example, an extensive survey of local Jewish institutions (180 pages); biographies of leading Jewish personalities (80 pages); a list of the Jews of Duisburg, 1900-45, prepared by Rita Vogedes (356 pages); an article by Emil Frank on the Jewish primary school in Duisburg, 1927-42; surveys of the synagogues; the registration of births, marriages and deaths; and information on the cultural life of Duisburg's Jews. Obviously, when so much material has been collected some overlapping is unavoidable and despite considerable editorial effort, a volume composed of such a variegated mine of information does not make for easy reading. Yet, this is without doubt one of the most important published collections of documents about a single German Jewish community. The short chapter that von Roden adds on "Christian-Jewish Conciliation Activities After the War" cannot change the fact that this is, however, a collection of documents about a community that no longer exists. MENAHEM KAUFMAN The Hebrew University

Hans Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia. Oxford: Macmillan/St. Antony's College, 1986. viii, 289 pp.

Only one of the chapters in this volume has not been published previously in various scholarly journals, but their current re-publication testifies to their enduring interest. Having appeared separately over a long period of time, there is necessarily a certain lack of continuity between the different chapters and some repetition. Nevertheless, the volume is held together by the seminal question, "Why was the Russia of the Tsars the only one of Europe's old regimes to persist in regarding Jews as secondclass citizens in law as well as fact?" (p. vii). Each essay is built on solid and thorough research, as can quickly be ascertained by a glance at the notes or the volume's lengthy and very useful bibliography of works cited. Carefully analyzing the policies and persons of Russia's rulers, Rogger

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challenges numerous accepted interpretations. In the process he draws a kaleidoscopic picture of the political aspect of Russian Jewish history during the second half of the nineteenth century and suggests promising avenues for further research. In spite of surface appearances, the issues addressed in these essays are highly complex. The strength of Rogger's analysis lies in his willingness to wrestle with this complexity without simplifying it. The inconsistencies and ambiguities of Russian policy as well as of the men who formulated it are a major theme of the book. Such an approach does not make for easy reading, but anyone willing to put in the effort will find it very rewarding. No major topic in Tsarist Jewish policy from 1861 to 1917 is left unexamined. Jewish emancipation, the pogroms of 1881-82 and 1903-1906, the Beilis case, the attitudes and actions of Russian ministers and official commissions, emigration, Jewish ownership and use of land are all discussed along with racist tendencies in Russian antisemitism, the Jews as scapegoats for the regime's failings, the Pale of Settlement, the Jews' role in Russia's economic life, Jews in the radical movements and the Jews' numbers as an important factor in official thinking. The last two essays in the book have only a tenuous connection with the first six, namely, antisemitism. They examine the important questions of how an organized Russian right-wing movement emerged in the period 1900-1906 and whether there was such a thing as Russian Fascism before the Revolution. The efforts of the Russian right to compete for power were marked by inescapable self-contradictions and ambivalences, robbing the movement of "vitality, dynamism and appeal," not to mention consistency (p. 107). Interestingly enough, Rogger's other essays show that this characterization also applies to the Russian government's efforts to address the Jewish question. To modernize or not to modernize? This, put most simply, was the question that tore Russian officials first one way and then another from the time of Peter the Great, but certainly never more so than from the time of Alexander II until the Revolution. Yet, almost no Russian statesman in the Tsarist period was prepared to make a radical and consistent break with the past—either in the direction of total reaction or thoroughgoing reform. With regard to the Jewish question, this ambivalence led to fitful movements somewhere between emancipation and total exclusion. Russian officials' perceptions of this question were complex and varied, including realistic evaluations of objective circumstances (not always favorable to Jewish rights), justified and unjustified fears and irrational anti-Jewish prejudices. The dangers implied by the massive numbers of Jews in the empire (multi-national, in fact, but which Russian officials would have preferred to have been homogeneous and unitary), the poverty of the non-Jewish masses and the backwardness of the Russian economy and social structure, for example, were genuine concerns of Russian officials. At the same time, officials were often aware of the harm done by anti-Jewish measures, not only to the Jews but to the society and economy in general. So every now and then they compromised and relaxed legislation, thereby producing all kinds of legal inconsistencies, half measures and "temporary regulations."

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Rogger was one of the first to raise serious questions about the standard interpretation of the anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia as being government sponsored for the purpose of deflating the liberal and radical movements and directing onto the Jews the people's anger over being oppressed by the government and the landlords. This issue has received increasing attention in recent years, and much of the new research lends support to Rogger's contention that Russian officials were too fearful and lacking in self-confidence to have promoted mass action even in support of the government. While Rogger does not make any comparisons between imperial Russia and what has been occurring in the Soviet Union in recent decades, his portrayal of Tsarist policy and behavior suggests many parallels—in spite of the tremendous changes wrought by the Communist regime. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the stillvery-much-alive issue of Jewish emigration. Although we can only touch on the subject here, a sustained and nuanced inquiry into these continuities of Russian history would undoubtedly yield valuable insights. Countering one of the most popular interpretations of Tsarist antisemitism, Rogger makes it perfectly clear that the Russian government never seriously considered expelling the Jews. Harsh official treatment contributed to a massive Jewish exodus. But this was generally not its aim. When occasionally emigration was touted as policy, it was never viewed as more than a partial remedy for the Jewish question. In fact, till the very end of the empire, for any of the state's subjects, leaving Russia to settle abroad or even instigating action to do so was defined by law as a criminally punishable act. The law was not enforced rigorously or uniformly, but neither was it changed. This resulted in glaring inconsistencies in policy and behavior. No laws were ever adopted to normalize, regulate or facilitate Jewish emigration, even when it became a flood after 1881. Arbitrary and capricious interpretations of existing regulations and general confusion were the norm. The gates of Russia were never opened "as wide as the Jews would have wished or their official enemies, in logic, should have desired" (p. 176). With some reservations, much of this description could be applied to recent Soviet practice. Before the revolution, as today, the obstacles to emigration were considerable. First, there was the formal general prohibition; then, would-be emigrants could get no systematic public or (legal) private assistance or guidance. Getting a passport meant overcoming numerous administrative difficulties and abuses at a high cost in time and money. Crossing the frontier illegally (today almost unheard of) involved material sacrifices and physical risks, as well. Finally, there was the spectre of being prohibited from ever returning to Russia. That large masses of Jews successfully braved these perils testifies to the urgency of their need to leave the empire. Before the revolution, as now, the problem of Jewish emigration took on international dimensions. Foreign countries (especially the United States) became involved both because the new immigrants were arriving on their shores and as a matter of moral concern. Like the Soviets, imperial "Russian statesmen were not insensitive to the opinion of a world of which they considered themselves to be a part, a world to which they were tied by diplomatic interest and financial need. The outside world, moreover, was directly affected by the Russian exodus and would take its waxing or waning as a signal of official intentions" (pp. 186-187).

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The words quoted are as true for the recent Soviet period as they are for the prerevolutionary period. The main difference is one of emphasis. Whereas Western states in the nineteenth century were mainly interested in seeing Russia's Jews given equal rights, Western states today focus on and support the demand of Soviet Jews for the right to emigrate. The Jews in imperial Russia were an unwanted minority, discriminated against officially and unofficially. At the same time, emigration was viewed as a privilege to be granted by decision of the authorities, not a right established by law. Rogger demonstrates repeatedly that Tsarist officials were very concerned about a demographic threat to the dominance of the Great Russian nationality in the Empire. So, they might have been glad to get rid of certain minorities by emigration. However, they also feared that ethnic Russians would leave too if there was freedom of choice. Soviet Jews, although usually enjoying equal personal rights, suffer discrimination in religious and cultural matters. At the same time, Soviet law and practice grant only very limited recognition to the right of emigration; and, although the demographic issue continues to be of major concern to Soviet leaders, it is only one of many considerations guiding their decisions on emigration policy. In view of all that has just been said, why not simply sanction the Jews' departure? Because the regime could not see itself granting the Jews a privilege that it was unprepared to give to others. (This consideration undoubtedly also influences Soviet policy.) The government of the Tsar, like the Soviet regime right up to the present, did not want to relinquish any control over its subjects. Less efficient than the modernizing Soviets, the representatives of the Tsar created a chaotic situation, with no firm decision ever being taken either to allow Jewish emigration in a regulated fashion or to block it thoroughly. The resulting inconsistencies reflect the uncertainty, doubts, irresolution and ambivalence characteristic of the empire's treatment of the Jewish question in general. The Soviets have shown less inconsistency—to a certain extent they have regulated their Jewish emigration policy to suit domestic and international pressures and needs. However, they have also demonstrated a high degree of arbitrariness in their treatment of Soviet Jews. This suggests what many have long argued, that Soviet officials, for all their egalitarian ideological slogans on the nationalities question, still retain much of the prejudice as well as the doubts and uncertainty that plagued Tsarist officials. The question put by Rogger as the link between the different chapters of his book can be rephrased: Why is the Russia of the Soviets the only one of Europe's modern regimes to persist in holding onto its Jews against their will? Behind all this lies one of the most significant continuities in Russian history— the eternal refusal of Russia's rulers to give up their control over the population, whether the latter be labeled "subjects" or "citizens." We can thank Hans Rogger for revealing some of the important anomalies resulting from this "will to power" in imperial Russia. Further research will surely enhance our knowledge of parallel anomalies in the Soviet period. MICHAEL ARONSON Bar-Han University

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Nathan Rotenstreich, Jews and German Philosophy: The Polemics of Emancipation. New York: Schocken Books, 1984. 266 pp. Jews and German Philosophy is an illuminating meditation on the place of the Jewish problem in German philosophy from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. Nathan Rotenstreich studies a variety of major and minor figures, non-Jewish and Jewish, beginning with Kant and Mendelssohn and concluding with Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and the "faint resonance" of the latter two in the thought of three Zionist thinkers, M. J. Berdyczewski, Ahad Ha-am and A. D. Gordon. In Kant's system, reason alone could be the basis of moral acts and the rational will had to be an ' 'autonomous'' one, that is, determined by the moral law itself and not by anything external to it. Freedom was ' 'the condition of the moral law'' and a will was defined as good "because of its willing, i.e., it is good of itself," in contrast to a heteronomous will that is determined by contingencies.' Consequently, Kant objected to Judaism on the grounds that it was a statutory system dependent not on human reason, but on the deity as an external authority. Kant would seek Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, as his 1793 book was entitled, and he saw Judaism's very principles as heteronomous. Rotenstreich's discussion brings out the links between the Critical philosophy as a whole and Kant's specific utterances on Jews and Judaism. He is especially suggestive in his comparisons of Kant and Mendelssohn, on the one hand, and of Kant and Hermann Cohen, on the other. According to Hegel, Judaism's role was important in the evolution of religion, but as a religion of "sublimity" resting on a radical separation of God and human beings, it was superseded by Christianity. He, nonetheless, strongly supported Jewish civil rights, going so far as to claim Jewish emancipation to be a criterion of the development of a modern state, a point Marx later repeated.2 Rotenstreich's concern with "the polemics of emancipation" per se leads him to exclude from his discussion those of Hegel's writings that were unknown to his contemporaries. This is unfortunate because Hegel's Theologische Jugendschriften (written between 1795 and 1800 but not published fully until 1907) and various of his political essays provide a vital context for the philosopher's project and its implications for Jewry. In his early writings, Hegel was preoccupied with religious "positivity," that is, the believer's observance of laws and rules that are externally posited. Jesus' preachings, he argued, were originally a reaction to a Jewry for whom the service of God had become "slavish obedience to laws not laid down by themselves."3 But Christianity too became "positivized" and to such positivity Hegel contraposed the Greco-Roman world: As free men the Greeks and the Romans obeyed laws laid down by themselves. . . . They never learned nor taught [a moral system] but evinced by their actions the moral maxims which they could call their very own. In public as in private and domestic life, every individual was a free man, one who lived by his own laws. The idea (Idee) of his country or of his state was the invisible and higher reality for which he strove. 4

This integrated self-legislative striving provided a stark contrast to the Germany in which the young Hegel lived; the gap between cultural achievement and backward

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politics there provides the essential backdrop to his political thinking (together, of course, with the French Revolution). In an early political essay, he averred that Germany was no longer a state but rather an edifice composed of ' 'the sum of rights which the individual parts have wrested from the whole."5 The issues raised by these circumstances remained with him; two decades later, when he was associated with post-Napoleonic reformed Prussia, Hegel declared that "the state is actual only when its members have a feeling of their own self-hood and it is stable only when public and private ends are identical," and wrote one of his most renowned lines: "Es ist Gang Gottes in der Welt, dass der Staat ist."6 Consequently, the following essential questions, unexplored in Rotenstreich's account, come to mind: How is Hegel's advocacy of Jewish civil rights to be situated with respect to his view of the actualized state as a dialectical union of public and private ends? And with regard to his famous threefold distinction between "Abstract Right," "Morality" and Sittlichkeit (the "ethical life" of an authentic community)? How is it to be historically placed in terms of the state of German politics in Hegel's day? If Rotenstreich's treatment of Hegel is not fully satisfying, his presentation of Hegel's disciples and Jewish responses to them is especially interesting. Rotenstreich provides a trenchant discussion of Bruno Bauer, usually remembered today as the object of Marx's bitter critique in 1843. Echoing Hegel, Bauer saw Judaism as the lowest stage in religious historical development, transcended by Jesus' identification of himself with God, and then by what Bauer describes as the notion of union of God with the community (as opposed to with just one man) in early Christianity. Christianity, he argued, made possible a final ascent to atheism, and Judaism's stubborn survival showed its ahistoricity and inability to evolve. Unless the Jews shed their religion, their "tribal consciousness," the call for Jewish emancipation was a call for Jewish privilege. Moreover, to the extent that the Christian state privileged Christianity, it entailed characteristics Bauer blamed on Judaism. Although he held that Christianity ought ultimately to be transcended too, the Jewish demand for emancipation in a Christian state was reduced in his views to a conflict between Christian and Jewish privileges. Since Christianity was a higher stage than Judaism, he concluded that Jewish demands for rights should be rejected. A variety of responses were engendered. Rotenstreich rightly presents Marx as a relatively minor figure in the debate. Marx's contribution—an argument for Jewish rights that is often misconstrued because of the epithets hurled by its author at Judaism—is most interesting for what it tells us about the development of his own thought (in particular his distinction between political and human emancipation). Especially challenged by Bauer was the Jewish Reform movement, whose criticisms of ossified Orthodoxy sounded uncomfortably similar to some of those Bauer made against Judaism as a whole. Abraham Geiger queried if, by Bauer's logic, Jews were to be deprived of rights in a Christian state, ought not Christians to suffer the same in a "free" state? Gustav Phillipson insisted that the very existence of the Reform movement disproved Bauer's assertions of the ahistoricity of Judaism. The non-Jewish socialist Karl Grim argued contra Bauer that the key task was not liberating humanity from religion, but making liberty the operative principle of the state, and making religion a private matter. Like Hegel and Marx, he saw political emancipation of the Jews as a sign of a state's modernity.

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Rotenstreich draws our attention to a less-known but important article by Bauer on "Judaism in an Alien World," written some twenty years later. By the time Bauer reengaged the Jewish question, he was a Prussian conservative who insisted that Germany's culture was due to superior Aryan stock, then threatened, he believed, by "Roman-Gallic blood" among other things. In line with such thinking, Bauer spewed forth that the Jew was a "white Negro" whose brain was the counterpart of Black brawn. As Rotenstreich notes, in such ranting we see neatly illustrated the transition to the racial antisemitism that was to become so virulent in future German history. A different perspective was provided by the man who succeeded Hegel at the University of Berlin. Karl Ludwig Michelet reviewed Moses Hess's proto-Zionist booklet Rome and Jerusalem after its 1862 publication. He was prepared to accept Hess's idea of a Jewish return to the Land of Israel, but, following Hegel's claim that a people and its Volksgeist could play but one historical role in the unfolding of the Weltgeist, he rejected the idea of a renewed Jewish universal mission. Rotenstreich notes that "whereas Hegel and his followers regarded Christianity as a religious or symbolic expression of the metaphysical idea of absolute unity, Hess held the view that it is precisely Judaism which constitutes the religious-metaphysical manifestation of the metaphysics of unity" (pp. 165-167). Indeed, this might be taken further. Shlomo Avineri points out in his Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (1985) that Hess chastised the Christian view that Judaism, in contradistinction to itself, was a materialistic religion. Denying that Judaism posited a duality of spirit and matter, Hess insisted that Judaism sought to make this world holy. Consequently, it is Christianity that radically separated man from the divine, rendering separately to Caesar and God. From Hess we could derive, at least implicitly, the argument that Christianity is a religion of sublimity inasmuch as civitas del is not of this world. There are many veins yet to be explored in the rich and multi-layered lode Nathan Rotenstreich has begun to mine for us. The many insights of Jews and German Philosophy should stimulate and will surely provide the essential reference points for future scholarship. MITCHELL COHEN City University of New York

Notes 1. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (Indianapolis: 1956), 4; idem, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (Indianapolis: 1956), 9-10, 59-60. 2. Marx writes, "States which cannot yet politically emancipate the Jews must be rated by comparison with the perfected political state and shown to be underdeveloped states" (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Holy Family in Collected Works, vol. 4 [New York: 1975], 110). 3. G. W. F. Hegel, "The Positivity of the Christian Religion," in Early Theological Writings, T. M. Knox (ed.) (Philadelphia: 1971), 68-69. 4. Ibid., 153-154.

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5. G. W. F. Hegel, "The German Constitution," in Hegel's Political Writings, T. M. Knox (trans.), Introduction by Z. A. Pelczynski (Oxford: 1969), 143, 150-151. 6. G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, T. M. Knox (trans.) (Oxford: 1969), 279, 281. Knox translates Hegel's sentence as, "The march of God in the world, that is what the state is"; but Shlomo Avineri, following Walter Kaufmann, is certainly correct in clarifying the meaning of this to be that it is God's way that there should be a state. See Avineri's Hegel's Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge: 1972), 176-177. The Philosophy of Right was first published in 1821.

Howard M. Sachar, Diaspora: An Inquiry into the Contemporary Jewish World. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. xiv + 539 pp.

Although comprehensive textbook surveys of modern Jewish history exist in Hebrew and English, the same cannot be said of the contemporary period. Barnet Litvinoff s A Peculiar People, published in London in 1969, made an enterprising attempt to fill this gap but was aimed at the general rather than the academic public. Howard Sachar's new work belongs to much the same genre as that of Litvinoff. Even more personal in tone, it is based on a wide range of secondary sources as well as the first-hand investigation of a widely traveled, perceptive observer. Although the blurb tells us that this is the final volume in a trilogy that began with Sachar's The Course of Modern Jewish History and continued with his A History of Israel— both of which enjoy wide use in undergraduate modern history surveys at Englishspeaking universities—the third volume, which deals with the Diaspora (excepting North America) appears to be far more oriented to the general reading public than were its predecessors. As always, the prolific Sachar writes gracefully and with masterful sweep. He captures the reader's interest with his skillful method of building the narrative around the careers of personalities who epitomize the identity modes and Jewish concerns, as well as the general societal involvements, characteristic of the particular Jewish community to which they belong. Examples are Mikhail Zand, formerly a human rights and Zionist activist in the Soviet Union; Cecil Margo, a judge in the Republic of South Africa; Leon Feffer, a business magnate in the paper industry of Brazil. This method adds absorbing human interest to Sachar's account of what he describes as "the 'third world' of contemporary Jewry, with approximately 4.5 million individuals who live, or who have lived until recent years, beyond the frontiers both of Israel and of North America." There is, however, a price for this engaging method of writing, and it is paid for in a measure of analytical superficiality. This defect is compounded by the inherent difficulties of Sachar's ambitious attempt—laudable in itself—to encompass in his survey so many different communities, the situations of which are fully comprehensible only with reference to their unique societal environments. Moreover, many of these communities have never benefited from primary historical and sociological enquiry. This leads to the kind of inaccuracy of detail that may pass with the general

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reading public but is bound to strike a jarring note with experts on each particular community. The book opens and closes with Sachar's conversations with Gerhart Riegner of the World Jewish Congress, perhaps the doyen of contemporary Jewish "civil servants." Typical of the author's novelistic style throughout, Riegner is described thus: "Short and overweight. The spectacles on his rotund, owlish face, together with his formal bearing, lent him a distinctly pedantic appearance." In between these conversations, Sachar takes the reader on an absorbing journey through some thirty Jewish communities, large and small, almost like a latter-day Benjamin of Tudela. A brief account of Riegner's role in transmitting to the West in mid-1942 the first reports of the diabolical Nazi program for liquidation of the entire Jewish population of occupied Europe leads into an informative chapter on the postwar German reparations agreements and the re-construction of today's small Jewish communities in Germany and Austria. An account of the "prolonged convalescence" of the Dutch and Belgian communities follows. Then the Jews of Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries are briefly discussed. As is merited by the Jewish community of France, the rejuvenated center of contemporary European Jewry, Sachar devotes to it two full chapters. A chapter on Great Britain is aptly titled "The Jews of Complacence," and this is followed by Australian and South African Jewries. There are also quite extensive treatments of the Jewish situation in Latin America and of the residual Jewish communities in the contemporary Moslem world. Further attention is paid to the Jews in the Communist satellites—Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and Romania. Finally, three chapters poignantly describe the vicissitudes of fortune and Zionist revival undergone by the still large Jewish population of the Soviet Union. An exhaustive review of Sachar's ambitious treatment of so many different communities requires not one but a battery of experts in the field of contemporary Jewry. One tends, therefore, to focus on those communities best known to oneself from firsthand research. In the present reviewer's case the section on the Jews of South Africa is an example. It shows Sachar at his best in encapsulating the essence of the Jews' situation with a sensitivity and an understanding born of perceptive observation on the spot. Without burdening the reader with abstruse detail, Sachar cuts competently to the core of the matter; he sketches the societal background of Afrikaner-English relations, traces the largely Litvak origin of the Jewish community and lucidly highlights its salient characteristics, one of which is the Zionist consciousness that permeates this community. At the same time, inaccuracies of detail do intrude. Examples are: the Afrikaans term for itinerant Jewish traders is given as "smousers" instead of "smouse"; we are told that Dr. Malan, the leader of the Afrikaner nationalists who ascended to power in 1948, recognized the State of Israel de jure in May 1948 when, in fact, it is rather significant that he delayed doing so until May 1949; the number of South African Jews living in Israel is underestimated and that of "yordim" in South Africa is overestimated, and so on. Yet, one would be guilty of nitpicking if one were to allow these minor defects to overshadow the essentially sound and instructive portrait of this community that Sachar manages to paint—and in so engaging a manner.

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The major purpose of this review being to guide potential readers as to the reliability of the work being reviewed, I found it necessary to consult colleagues in the Institute of Contemporary Jewry whose field of expertise extends to other communities such as those in South America and the Soviet Union. They confirm the evaluation that although the book certainly provides the uninitiated reader with a richly informed and generally reliable survey, it falls short of being authoritative in regard to factual detail. Sachar's quotations from conversations with the major personalities around whom he weaves his narrative, although fascinating, are very susceptible to errors of detail. An example is the quotation of Mikhail Zand's recollection of famous Russian personalities he got to know in the human rights movement of the 1960s (p. 408). Names such as Solzhenitsyn and Ginzburg are grouped with Krupskaya, Lenin's widow. Since she died in 1939 (when Zand was only 12 years of age), it is obvious that Sachar has somewhat jumbled the details provided by Zand. A similar, but more important, example of the shortcomings of such quoted conversations, is to be found in the statement attributed to Leonardo Senkman concerning Argentinian Jewry (p. 309). The impression that Senkman considers an autocratic regime somehow preferable for Argentinian Jewry to a democratic one, is contradicted by his own writing on the subject and by what he has told the present reviewer. The final chapter of the book briefly sums up "the diaspora condition." Sachar rightly underscores what has been evident throughout the work—the crucial impact of the State of Israel on Diaspora Jewish life. Indeed, many of the smaller communities are wholly dependent on the existence and influence of Israel. Balancing on the scales the political status and self-esteem conferred on the Diaspora by Israel and the damage to Diaspora Jews caused by present "anti-Zionist" modes of antisemitism, Sachar finds the scales heavily tipped in favor of the beneficial influences. Against the background of so comprehensive a survey of the Diaspora one anticipates a fuller treatment of the current debate on the relations between Israel and the Diaspora, one which might draw out the implications of the relative self-sufficiency of American Jewry as compared with the overwhelming dependence on Israel of the "third world" of the Jewish Diaspora. This Sachar does not undertake, but the relative fragility of the Diaspora outside of North America may be inferred. What the academic scholar will not find in this work is a comprehensive analytical framework such as might facilitate a comparative understanding of the common and distinctive features of contemporary Jewish communities. Although Sachar refers to Daniel Elazar's work, the latter's comparative analysis of the Jewish polity in its international as well as internal communal aspects is not given the place it deserves in "an inquiry into the contemporary Jewish world." Nor is sufficient comparative analysis provided of the ethnic-religious ambience of the various environing societies in which Jews are today to be found. The result is that although this work is far more than an anecdotal travelogue, it is also somewhat less than pure historical scholarship. This renders it rather less worthy of use in undergraduate teaching than are the two earlier works of Sachar's trilogy. But this is not to deny the book's overall merits as a significant contribution to contemporary Jewish self-understanding. Moreover, because in the United States contemporary Jewish

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studies tend to concentrate excessively on American Jewry itself, often to the exclusion of the smaller Diaspora communities, Sachar's book fills a real need for the American Jewish public. GIDEON SHIMONI The Hebrew University

Samuel Sager, The Parliamentary System of Israel. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1985 (Foreword by Abba Eban). xiii + 259 pp.

Despite the widespread interest in Israel and its politics, the available literature is relatively scarce. A new study on Israel's political system (especially when written in English) must, therefore, be welcomed. Samuel Sager is neither a political scientist nor a constitutional expert, although he has already written extensively on the subjects he deals with in the present book. He is a member of the Knesset staff, having served in a parallel capacity in Canada's House of Commons. This background provides a particular angle of vision from which he observes and describes the Israeli Parliament. Although this may not be a scientific study, nevertheless, it may be considered a mine of information for the foreign reader interested in the Israeli system. Undoubtedly, the most striking chapter (even for the Israeli reader) is the first one ("Pre-State Influence"). The degree of continuity between the procedures of the pre-state World Zionist Organization (its congress and its general council) and the Knesset was perhaps known in general terms. Sager elucidates the point very clearly. This helps to explain the history of the first years of the Knesset, and the fact that the "founding fathers" did not hesitate for a moment in choosing the form of the new parliament. Here, too, lie the roots of the entire political system of Israel in its formative years, with its proportional representation and—in consequence— its coalition governments. Beyond the Zionist institutional roots of the system, Sager correctly points to the pre-state elected Assembly and the National Council, national political bodies that existed from 1920 to 1948 in Mandatory Palestine. The greatest part of the other chapters is rather descriptive and, therefore, of greater interest to the foreign reader. The debate over the constitution is well presented, though the reasons given for the absence of a written constitution are somewhat over-subtle. Chapters 4 through 11 are devoted to the organizational aspects of the Knesset, including the electoral system, membership, the Knesset at work and the committees. Here Sager is at his best, for this is his true area of expertise. He provides an insider's view that makes this book an excellent guide to the Knesset. Chapter 12 deals with what is the heart of any parliamentary system: the relationship between government and parliament. Sager demonstrates finesse in his analysis, and the information he provides on the coalition system is valuable. Yet here one also finds the limitations of this book. There is no comparative material

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and none of the literature on the theory of coalitions is quoted. Such an approach might have added to the book's interest. Is the problem of the Parliament not a very common one in all democratic countries? The party system as such is not really examined nor is the election of 1977 in which the Likud won power from Labour, discussed in its own right. The result is that Sager's conclusion to a discussion devoted to "a strengthened Knesset" is very weak. Clearly, Sager's book is written from a particular angle—that of the Knesset. The government as such is almost ignored, as is the presidency, the attorney general and the judiciary. This explains some of the more important shortcomings of this book. Despite this, Sager's book can be a valuable introduction to the study of Israel's system. It provides important information, including tabulated data. CLAUDE KLEIN The Hebrew University

Jonathan D. Sarna (ed.), The American Jewish Experience. New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1986. xix + 303 pp. This volume is a text for courses in American Jewish history. It has been issued in conjunction with the Center for the Study of the American Jewish Experience at Cincinnati's Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion. Both the sponsors and the editor should be congratulated on a job well done. There is probably no finer pedagogical tool in the field than this one. It is, in addition, a useful, one-volume excursion in American Jewish history both for interested lay readers and scholars seeking a convenient repository of important already-published work. I intend, however, to review the book in light of its principal purpose: a text for instruction. Sarna has brought together twenty essays by the top scholars of the last several generations in the field, among them Jacob Rader Marcus, Melvin Urofsky, Moses Rischin, Lucy Dawidowicz, Paula Hyman, Deborah Dash Moore. All the essays have previously been published, either in the most relevant journals (Judaism, American Jewish History, American Jewish Archives), in other historical journals (e.g., Business History Review and Medical History) or in monographs and other anthologies. They include such familiar, deservedly admired essays as Leo Ribuffo's "Henry Ford and The International Jew," Henry Feingold's "Who Shall Bear Guilt for the Holocaust: The Human Dilemma" and excerpts from wellregarded books such as Jeffrey Gurock's When Harlem Was Jewish, Moore's At Home in America and Rischin's The Promised City. Most of this published work represents not only the best but also the most current scholarship: fifteen of the essays were written during the last decade-and-a-half and nine since 1980. The entire collection is laid out with the needs of the average undergraduate student in mind. The essays are organized choronologically into five loosely conceived but logical periods: the colonial era, the eras of both German and East

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European mass immigration and community development, the interwar years and 1939 to the present. The organization is intended, in the editor's words, to "highlight critical moments and issues in the past that helped to shape the present, as well as broader themes—the central tensions in American Jewish life—that recur like a familiar refrain generation after generation." The organization is also intended to illustrate the fundamental interdependence between Jewish histories outside and inside the United States. To provide weight against chronological compartmentalization, Sarna has written a useful introduction that will be of great assistance to students. It cogently summarizes elements of continuity in the American Jewish experience: four themes in the rise and development of Jewish ethnicity ("belief in the promise of American life," "faith in pluralism," "the quest for [socioeconomic] success" and "commitment to Jewish survival"); and five historical sources of tension and conflict (ethnicity vs. assimilation, tradition vs. change, unity vs. diversity, majority rule vs. minority rights and Christian antisemitism vs. American tolerance and pluralism). Each chronological section is itself preceded by a short introduction that provides useful factual context and highlights these same themes in their respective historical settings. Each essay, too, has an introduction that serves the same purpose, but with yet greater specificity. Contemporary relevance and the controversies arising out of various ideas and interpretations are also explored in these context-setting short essays in which the editor points to the historical origins of contemporary processes in Jewish ethnicity and in the relations of Jews to the American world beyond the ethnic group. There are bibliographies at the end of each section, and there is a guide to reference sources in American Jewish history that lists bibliographic guides, encyclopedias, leading periodicals and the periodical indexes, subject bibliographies and textbooks. These bibliographies should be of assistance in stimulating independent reading and research. Finally, there are two statistical appendexes that trace the development of both American Jewish population and Jewish immigration to the United States in absolute and percentage terms. Methodical and complete, this book is almost a syllabus in itself. Students and professors alike will be richer for its adoption in relevant courses. DAVID A. GERBER State University of New York at Buffalo

Joachim Schoenfeld, Holocaust Memoirs: Jews in the Lwow Ghetto, Janowski Concentration Camp and as Deportees in Siberia. Hoboken, N.J.: Ktav Publishing House, 1985. xvi + 328 pp.

Holocaust Memoirs is quite an unusual book. It has been written by a 90-year-old man, some 40 years after the events described in it. It also differs from most published memoirs in respect to its content. The first part contains the author's narrative, whereas the second presents personal testimonies by other Holocaust and war survivors. The basic drive behind the author's decision to record his own

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memoirs and to collect fragments of other people's life stories was his sense of moral obligation to bear witness. Another reason was his wish to protest against the growing notoriety of "revisionist" writings denying the Holocaust of European Jewry. The reader's first impression is of a strange hodgepodge of information concerning the writer, his immediate family as well as acquaintances and even complete strangers. Extensive discussions of fairly well-known facts are often accompanied by quasi-philosophical ruminations. Nevertheless, the book is worth reading, if only for the fact that it centers on Nazi-occupied Eastern Galicia, an area scarcely covered by existing memoristic literature.1 A considerable part of Schoenfeld's narrative covers the short but eventful initial period of Soviet rule in Lwow, between September 1939 and June 1941.2 The author's personal story begins with his family's escape eastward from besieged Warsaw. He vividly describes the chaos, disorientation and unsuccessful attempts to cross borders, so typical of the refugee situation. The Soviet prelude of 1939-41 had its pluses and minuses for local Jews and for Jewish refugees from central Poland. One finds even humorous overtones such as the fact that some of the Soviet officials' wives, coming from post-collectivization Russia, "used nightgowns as evening dresses." On June 30, 1941, the last Soviet troops left Lwow and on July 1 German soldiers appeared on the streets of the city. While telling the tragic story of the initial phase of Nazi occupation and Ukrainian collaboration, Schoenfeld points out the exceptional anti-Nazi stand of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky and his condemnation of murder. Extensive information on life in the Lwow ghetto, the structure and activities of the Judenrat and the Janowski camp follow. This is particularly significant because we know much less about the Lwow ghetto than about other major ghettos in Poland. It turns out that Lwow Jews had their own Holocaust chroniclers, like those of Warsaw and Lodz. Notes written by two journalists were buried in glass jars, but they were never recovered after the war. Schoenfeld reports not only on the tragedy and misery caused by the Germans, Ukrainians and Poles but makes it quite clear that among the Jews themselves there were cases of immoral behavior. Some of the ghetto police were utterly corrupt and even participated with their Nazi counterparts in their drinking bouts and sex orgies. The memoirs also deal with the various attempts at, and techniques of, survival. There was, of course, among other things, the extraordinary importance of looks. Some Jews underwent plastic surgery in order to remove undesirable physical traits. The ultimate fate of Schoenfeld's immediate family tells the tragic story of those times: his wife was murdered in Belzec, his elder son (after escaping from the Janowski camp) was shot on a Lwow street, the son's fiancee committed suicide and the younger son, who survived the occupation, was mobilized into the Soviet army and was killed at the front. The author, after the liquidation of the Lwow ghetto, ended up in the Kamionka and Tarnopol labor camps and succeeded in escaping from the latter in March 1944. He returned to Lwow and was liberated by the Red Army on July 26 of that year. An appendix to Schoenfeld's memoir consists of thirteen personal testimonies both of Holocaust survivors and of Jews who lived throughout the war in the Soviet Union and settled finally in the United States, Canada, Australia, Israel and Ger-

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many. A scholarly work on Jewish deportees and refugees in the USSR has yet to be written. If and when this is done, testimonies such as those collected and published by the author could be used as a source. Schoenfeld, by the very fact of presenting side by side the horrors of the Holocaust and the hardships of survival in the Soviet Union, alludes to the possibility of comparison between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia—a subject of heated historiographic polemics these days. A most significant lesson one could learn from Schoenfeld's memoirs is not only that of the immense tragedy and destruction but also that of the complexity of survival. Yehuda Bauer has correctly pointed out that the collective traumatization of the Jews led to their understandably emotional perception that gentiles were, at best, indifferent to the Jews' fate. Schoenfeld's testimony as well as those of his friends and relatives show that some Poles and Ukrainians helped Jews. These were sometimes complete strangers, but more often prewar acquaintances and friends. There were even some humane Germans. Several cases of assistance by Polish clergy are cited. Falsified birth certificates were issued by some of the parish priests. Some Poles working in the Lwow city administration supplied false statements. Assistance was a complex matter. It often took several gentile families to rescue a single Jew. There were also those unfortunate Jews who did not survive to tell the story of the good deed. All this, of course, is not to imply any symmetry between good and evil. One can only hope that as time passes more evidence will become available and, most significantly, our judgment will become more objective. Then historiography will perhaps render a more accurate and balanced image of the terrible past. SHIMON REDLICH Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Notes 1. The better known memoirs are those by Yitzhak Levin, 'Aliti mispeziyah (Tel-Aviv: 1946); David Kahana, Yoman geto Lvov (Jerusalem: 1978); and Tadeusz Zaderecki, Bimshol zlav hakeres bilvov (Jerusalem: 1982). 2. A forthcoming study by Dov Levin on Jews in the Soviet-annexed territories in the years 1939-41 is to be published by the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Julius H. Schoeps (ed.), Im Streit urn Kafka und das Judentum. Der Briefwechsel zwischen Max Brod und Hans-Joachim Schoeps. K6nigstein/Ts.: Athenaum, 1985. "Schoepsen und Broder"—this is how Gershom Scholem, in a letter to Walter Benjamin dated July 17, 1934, contemptuously referred to Hans-Joachim Schoeps and Max Brod.' Three years before, Benjamin had written to Scholem that a "bad" book on Kafka, which "a certain Johannes Schoeps" was working on, would

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hopefully help him to crystallize his own ideas about Kafka: "the worse it is, the better."2 In another letter, he admitted to Scholem that he had not read Schoeps on Kafka; he thought, anyway, that "nothing was more important than doing away with those loathsome pace-makers of Protestant theologumena inside Judaism."3 Here, too, he said he was looking forward to being inspired by Schoeps' "codification of all fallacies that derive from the Prague school of Kafka interpretation.' '4 A short comment made by Scholem on Kafka, Benjamin assured his friend, was much more than "what Schoeps could understand to the last of his days." And the same held for Brod, he added. In answer, Scholem warned Benjamin that he could not really count on Schoeps' Kafka book for inspiration, for the young man was "much too busy trying to make contact with German Fascism in every possible way." 5 This was March 1933, the very month in which an obedient Reichstag voted Hitler dictatorial powers. Schoeps, Jewish and 24 years old, was a great believer in the "Deutschtum der deutschen Juden" and an ardent anti-Zionist. So radical was his "Deutschtum" that he was accused in the Zionist weekly Selbstwehr of "Swastika-assimilation" ("We have seen many different assimilations: liberal, socialist, communist, red, pink, yellow; now there is a new one: Swastika-assimilation") and of actually welcoming Hitler for restoring faith and reuniting the masses (p. 104, nn. 1, 2). Zionism, he thought, was a belated flowering of West European imperialism, a secularization threatening the very core of Judaism. Schoeps had met Brod in 1929, having written an essay about him, which he published, significantly enough, in the Evangelical journal Christliche Welt. Ironically, the essay centered on Brod's presumed affinity with Protestant theology: his belief in man's fallen state and man's need for divine Grace. I say ironically, for it was precisely Brod's insistence on the unbridgeable gap between Jew and Christian that was soon to put an end to their short collaboration. The story of their relationship is now available in their correspondence, edited by Julius H. Schoeps. Its first part covers their early collaboration on the first volume of Kafka's posthumous writings (Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer, 1931) and their subsequent split. The second part includes their renewed correspondence after the war, Schoeps' decision to return to Germany from his Swedish exile and Brod's shocked response: "I don't understand how you can wish to live and teach amidst this heinous people." The third part holds Schoeps' essay on Brod, his four essays on Kafka and other relevant materials. As far as Kafka is concerned (and Kafka, no doubt, is the real protagonist of this book), the question is whether Schoeps' Kafka criticism is as easily dismissible as his incredibly wrongheaded concept of German Jewish relations. Does it deserve the sort of supercilious treatment that Scholem and Benjamin accorded it? Brod and Schoeps (as well as Scholem) belong to, or rather initiated, the theological school of Kafka criticism. Its locus classicus is Brod's postscript to the first edition of The Castle, where The Trial and The Castle are presented as two aspects of God, Judgment and Grace. This type of simplistic allegorization, which proved to be highly influential, has for many years now been superseded by a skeptical approach, focusing on Kafka's rhetoric of evasion, his complex techniques of both suggesting and escaping all final interpretation. Schoeps' way of theologizing Kafka, however, was different from Brod's from the start. Although equally bent on regarding Kafka as one of the great homini

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religiosi, the religion he attributed to him was negative, a theology of Heillosigkeit, of the reprobate condition. As such, notwithstanding Scholem's contempt, it was presented in terms not unlike Scholem's. Thus, in a 1935 essay, Schoeps says of the Law in Kafka that it "has become incomprehensible, but its validity for man stays on" (p. 194). Scholem, in a letter to Benjamin dated September 20, 1934, says of revelation in Kafka that "it is valid, but has no meaning" ("gilt, aber nicht bedeutet").6 As early as in his 1929 essay on Kafka (he was 20 at the time!) Schoeps offers, moreover, a Protestant interpretation of The Castle, which can be said in a sense to verge on the nowadays fashionable Deconstructive approach. All K's attempts must fail, he says, for "the distance between the Castle's instructions and human comprehension is too great" (p. 165). That is why all messages from the Castle, like the Chaplain's message in the form of the parable ' 'Before the Law'' in The Trial, must suggest an endless number of possible interpretations. "Each one is presented and accurately weighed against all others, but no single interpretation finally remains as the correct one" (p. 168). These are words that could just as well appear, it seems, in an essay by Jacques Derrida. Except that in Derrida, of course, they would apply to the entire text, whereas Schoeps limits them to man's comprehension, or rather incomprehension, of divine messages. To Schoeps, the inadequacy of human reason should make K. aware of his rationalist sinfulness and lead him to contrition. To a Deconstructionist, the very assumption that sin or contrition are the object must be disrupted by language. At the same time, there is food for thought in the affinity revealed here between Deconstructive theory and Protestant theology. There is further food for thought in the fact that the man who put his finger on Kafka's repudiation of human reason was an admirer of German Fascism. SHIMON SANDBANK The Hebrew University

Notes 1. Herman Schweppenhauser (ed.), Benjamin fiber Kafka (Frankfurt on the Main: 1981), 74-75. 2. Ibid., 65. 3. Ibid., 66. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., 67 6. Ibid., 82.

Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939. xviii + 314 pp. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Contrary to what might be understood from the title, this book does not really deal with the land regime of Mandatory Palestine, but merely with the land aspect

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of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict. Admittedly, this is a crucially important aspect of the conflict, and one that has not so far received the scholarly attention it deserves. The main topic of the book is the political conflict created by the land purchases of the Zionists in this period. On the one hand, the British were committed by the Balfour Declaration to help advance the Jewish cause. The nature of their government, being capitalist and free-market oriented, impelled them in the same direction. On the other hand, this land purchasing involved some dubious moral issues such as buying fellah land behind their backs. The British, therefore, could not turn a deaf ear to strong representations made by either side when land purchasing was pushed forward or obstructed. Hence, an almost inexhaustible topic for historians. In the first years after the beginning of the Mandate, the main area of purchasing was the Plain of Je/reel as well as in some limited areas in the coastal plain. At this stage, most of the lands were bought from land tycoons in extremely large blocks. Most of the sellers were not residents of Palestine and most of this land was not settled. Consequently, at this early stage, the political implications of this process were not particularly explosive. In the early 1930s, however, Palestinian demographic pressure emerged clearly and the British were forced to address this issue squarely. During this decade, they devised various policy measures intended to curtail land purchases, but the Zionist movement was able to circumvent all of them. The complete failure of the British government in this respect was in the final analysis because of its capitalist nature and, hence, its unwillingness to interfere with property rights. The author seems to have done a thorough job of amassing the relevant empirical details in the Israeli and British archives, but some wider issues of interpretation still remain unresolved. Stein ends his empirical study in 1939 and then moves directly to 1948 in order to comment on the old enigma of why the Palestinians, with two-thirds of the country's population, nevertheless lost out. This relates directly with what is, to my mind, the weakest aspect of the book—the author's failure to connect the land question to the actual outcome of the 1948 armed conflict. A mere glance at the land purchase map reveals the intimate connection between this map and the outcome of the 1948 war. The map shows that Zionist land purchases were overwhelmingly in the low-lying plains. Stein fails to account for this peculiar pattern, and his failure is due to the widespread ignorance of historians regarding land-settlement patterns that characterized late Ottoman social history. Very briefly, what happened was that, until about the middle of the nineteenth century, the rural population was concentrated almost totally in the mountain area. At the same time, owing to the weakness of the central Ottoman government, the plains were occupied by nomads and, hence, completely devoid of permanent settlers. In terms of the land regime, this meant that in the mountainous area the predominant ownership pattern was small peasant tenure, with extreme land fragmentation. In the plains no permanent land rights existed at all. After 1858 the situation started to change. There was more public security and the nomads were gradually expelled from the plains. Also, the new Ottoman land law made it possible to register ownership of large tracts of land—something not previously possible.

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In this way, city capitalists purchased large tracts of land, whereas in the mountains, peasant tenure was and remained more or less secure. Consequently, a large estate regime came into being in Palestine only in the plains; in turn, the land purchasers who worked for the Zionist movement could cooperate closely with these large landlords. Out of this cooperation grew the land map characteristic of modern Palestine and later Israel. HAIM GERBER The Hebrew University

Nathan Weinstock, Le pain de misere, 3 vols. Paris: Maspero, 1984, 1986. French historiography deals little and rather poorly with modern and contemporary Jewish history. This applies both to the history of Jewish communities, of various origins, living in France and to other historical communities from which parts of French Jewry today have descended. Paradoxically, in the last few years, French publishers have issued numerous anthologies devoted to Jewish topics. This new abundance testifies to French Jewry's interest in tracing its roots and in exploring its identity, as is true of minorities in other countries too. As French historians still show only a marginal interest in these topics, the writing of these works is undertaken by those without professional historical training—journalists and intellectuals—and the books they produce tend toward nostalgia. In addition, some of these authors, in trying to distance themselves from a Judaism of recent memory (or of the present) that they find personally distasteful, glorify a prior period that, in addition to other advantages, evokes proletarian associations. Historical support is thus sought for a more positive vision of the Jewish national identity. This is the case with Nathan Weinstock's three-volume work devoted to the history of the Jewish labor movement in Europe before 1945. Weinstock makes no mystery of his intentions. He tells us quite openly that he wrote this work for his own pleasure and because he had waited in vain for a professional historian to undertake the task. We appreciate the author's frankness and the high regard in which he holds his chosen topic. In the first two volumes, the Jewish labor movement in each country in Europe is chronicled separately for the period up to the First World War. In describing the movement's development in the Russian Empire (vol. 1) and in Galicia, Romania, France, England, Holland, and Greece (vol. 2), the author lays particular stress on dramatic or militant aspects: struggles, strikes and revolts. The Bund plays the central role in this account. Weinstock gives us a detailed description of the political and organizational vicissitudes of the various political parties and trade unions that developed out of Jewish labor. He relies primarily on Yiddish sources, memoirs and essays written by the labor militants themselves, thus familiarizing the Frenchreading public with previously inaccessible sources. At the same time, however, his uncritical reliance on such sources tends to reinforce the author's own ideological

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bias, and prevents him from dealing properly with the complexities of issues that he raises. This results in a skewed portrayal. Thus, although Weinstock deals with the interaction between Jewish labor and the non-Jewish labor movements, he ignores the confrontation within Jewish society between socialism and Zionism, though this is a crucial issue in the evolution of the Bund before the Russian Revolution. The author does not compare a variety of sources, and as a result fails to raise important issues. In the analysis of how Jewish labor movements chose a particular position, it would have helped the reader to know how much this process owed to intracommunal politics and how much to oppression of the Jews as a minority group. Various theories have been advanced in this regard, offering a general perspective, but none of them find expression in this work. The arrangement of the material in a non-chronological fashion makes it difficult to appreciate the relationships between certain events. A different approach might have produced a more subtle analysis of the relations between the Bund and the Bolsheviks than is presented (vol. 1, pp. 121-122). Weinstock sometimes resorts to language that indicates his preference for value judgement over analysis. It is, to say the least, hasty to summarize Ber Borochov's theory of the "inverted pyramid" as "an analysis of the Jewish problem carried out through the small end of opera glasses in the optics of the ghetto" (vol. 1, p. 253). Nevertheless, the virtue of the first two volumes is that they present a wealth of information that may potentially arouse wider interest in the subject in the French public and among French historians. The flaws already described become more pronounced, however, in the third volume, in which Weinstock deals with the period from 1914 to the end of the Second World War. Once again, the author studies the Jewish movements only in relation to their positions on issues of labor socialism, leaving aside other important issues that concerned them in the Jewish political arena. Weinstock painstakingly and minutely charts the schisms that marked the history of these movements, but we would have appreciated a more general view of fundamental problems rather than merely institutional ones. The political choices he writes about were made in an era of war and revolution. This background, as well as the changing attitudes toward Jews in general public opinion, directly influenced the choices that were made; yet Weinstock does not bring such factors into play when analyzing the splits in the labor parties. The chapter on France epitomizes all the insufficiencies of the author's approach. Thus, Weinstock explains the proliferation of landsmanshaftn solely in terms of the hostility encountered by East European immigrants on the part of bourgeois French Jews and the consistoire. But because he does not speak about the cultural, political and social disparities separating the different sectors of the community, this is merely a form of historical shortcut that adds little to our understanding of the topic. The author takes one paragraph to condemn the attitude of French Jewry during the Second World War. Relying on the tendentious views of Rajsfus, he draws a caricature of the Jewish establishment, placing it in the ranks of the collaborators.

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Communal institutions as well as Zionists are charged with "passive complicity" in the implementation of the Final Solution (p. 154), whereas the "laboring masses" (variously termed "workers" or "immigrants," depending on the context) all joined resistance movements. The "nonworker" Jews, strangely absent from the first two volumes, thus reappear suddenly only to be placed in the dock. If nostalgia defines the tone of the testimony of the participants that Weinstock offers in the first two volumes, bitterness becomes the main note of the third. Overall, Weinstock's account of the war is simply too distorted to offer any real understanding of the period. Astonishingly, Weinstock claims that his work is honest, if not objective, a straightforward factual presentation. This claim is a species of ideological naivete. Given the French historiographical vacuum on this subject, it would be regrettable if this deeply committed book—an important work when read in that light—were to be taken for a definitive study. RlNA POZNANSKI

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Jonathan S. Woocher, Sacred Survival, the Civil Religion of American Jews. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986. x + 244 pp. Since the publication in 1967 of Robert Bellah's article "Civil Religion in America" there has grown an extensive literature on civil religion. A large part of the literature on this topic has focused on the American case, but the discussion has been extended to the civil religions of some other countries, including Israel. Not all countries have civil religions, but when the concept is used it is generally applied to whole societies or nation states and rarely to particular groups or communities within them. In fact, because civil religion is held to be an expression of the cohesion of a nation, it is seen to transcend ethnic and other divisions within the society. If a particular ethnic or religious group has been understood to have its own civil religion, this has been because the society is deeply divided, as is the case of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Jonathan Woocher, the author of the book under review, is extending the empirical boundaries of the civil religion concept when he refers to the ' 'civil religion of American Jews." He writes that his central thesis is that, "the religion of American Jews may be found not only in the realm of the synagogue and denominational life, but in the activity and ideology of the vast array of Jewish organizations which are typically thought of as 'secular.' " He focuses on the federation movement, "the central core of the American Jewish polity," and argues that through these organizations American Jews "have achieved unity, purpose and identity as a moral community which transcends (without excluding) the overtly religious ideology and practice of the denominational movements of American Judaism." The division of American Jews along denominational lines (Reform, Conservative,

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Orthodox, etc.) means that "traditional" religion does not fully express, sustain, or direct American Jewry as a united moral community. This function and task is performed by a civil religion that endows the commonality with a transcendent significance. Transcendence does not refer here to God or the supernatural, but to the meanings and values of the collectivity, which go beyond the individuals who compose it. Woocher traces in detail the history and transformation of the non-synagogal institutions of American Jews from the late nineteenth century to the present time. He shows how American Jews created a polity of voluntary organizations and associations that began by focusing almost solely on philanthropy, gradually enlarged its functions to include educational and cultural activities for the entire community and, especially since 1967, has come to put great emphasis on support for the State of Israel. The historical analysis is followed by a delineation of the seven major traits of the American Jewish civil faith: the unity of the Jewish people, mutual responsibility, Jewish survival, the centrality of Israel, the enduring value of Jewish tradition, philanthropy and social justice and Americanness as a virtue. These beliefs are found in the Federation movement's publications and the speeches of its activists. From the findings of a survey of Jewish activists, Woocher concludes that although they differ over many aspects of the traditional Jewish faith, there is a fundamental consensus with regard to the basic tenets of the civil religion. A separate chapter is devoted to the central myths and rituals of civil Judaism in America. The myth "from Holocaust to Rebirth" recounts a process of destruction followed by a rebirth or redemption in which the State of Israel is a symbol of a new era and a new power for the Jewish people. Continuity with the Jewish past is confirmed, but there is a message that Jews need no longer be victims of history. The second myth emphasizes that America is different; it has provided American Jews with unprecedented opportunities and a unique security (antisemitism in America is here regarded as an aberration from the "true" America). The final myth is that of Jews as a chosen people with a special destiny and mission. The rituals of American Jewish civil religion include those that are appropriated from traditional Judaism and those of the polity itself: the "missions" to Israel, and the rituals of the fund-raising campaign and the General Assembly of the Council of Federations. The beliefs, myths and rituals of civil Judaism embody what Woocher, following Daniel Elazar, calls a "neo-Sadducean" religious sensibility, "the conviction that the meaning of Jewishness is located centrally in the experience of Jewish peoplehood." The institutional foci of this sensibility are the Federations, and Woocher proposes a "dialogue of Judaisms" between their civil Judaism and the Judaism of the synagogue. Such a dialogue requires the development of a sophisticated theology of civil Judaism, and Woocher reviews the works of a number of philosophers whose theories could contribute toward such a theology. Woocher's innovative application of the civil religion concept to the Federations and associated organizations of American Jews has enabled him to present a most interesting analysis of certain facets of American Jewry. I still have doubts, however, about the appropriateness of this application; the civil religion concept may be

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usefully applied as an analogy in an analysis of the American Jewish "polity," but Woodier's adoption of the concept raises a number of problems. He is certainly very aware of the conceptual and theoretical controversies in the literature on civil religion, but most of his references to these problems are to be found in footnotes, and there is no sustained analytical defense of his use of the concept. There are many definitions of civil religion, but most refer to a system of shared beliefs and public rituals that symbolize and/or integrate the nation and/or state. Many writers have not clarified the distinction between the state, a legal territorial unit, and the nation, which includes a subjective component of identity among its members. Most American Jews are citizens of, and identify with, the American state (which they may term a nation), and they also identify with the Jewish nation or people, but American Jews as a collectivity are neither a nation nor a state. From the perspective of American society, American Jews constitute an ethnic group; from the perspective of the Jewish nation, they constitute one of the communities of the Diaspora. If American Jews have a civil religion, this would have to be a civil religion of an ethnic group or a civil religion of a section of the Jewish nation. American Jews are not the only ethnic group in America with common beliefs, myths and rituals, and it is not evident that an analysis of ethnicity is deepened by adding the concept of civil religion. The usefulness of the concept may be diluted by such an application. Apart from the belief in Americanness as a virtue and the myth of a benign American society, the major social reference of most of the beliefs and myths that Woocher argues are part of the American Jewish civil religion do not refer specifically to American Jews but rather to Jews as a nation or people. This means that Woocher's usage of the concept contrasts with the accepted usage according to which the beliefs and symbols of civil religion focus on the sociopolitical unit of its adherents. Surely it is sufficient to refer to the beliefs and myths of American Jews as part of a religio-ethnic culture and identification that are expressed in a number of institutions including the Federations. Because Woocher conducted a survey of activists and not of a representative sample of American Jews, he admits that his data do not enable him to show whether there is a consensus among American Jews with regard to the beliefs that he discusses. The participation of the population in civil religion and its influence on them are questions that have been raised in the general literature on civil religion, but the problems of evidence are especially acute in Woocher's study. It is probable that the majority of American Jews would agree with the statements that were taken to affirm civil religion in the questionnaire that was distributed among activists, but there is often a considerable distance between these simple statements (e.g., "When the State of Israel is threatened, all Jews are threatened") and Woocher's sophisticated presentations of the beliefs and myths of civil Judaism. Woocher is probing what some other observers have termed the "folk religion" of American Jews, but he presents this "little tradition" as a "great tradition" with its own institutions and highly intellectualized formulations. Thus, the book often reads as a promotion of an ideal portrayal of civil religion rather than an analysis of a phenomenon that is believed in, and practiced by, people. Even more problematic than the beliefs are the "rituals" of civil Judaism and the

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level of ritual participation. Although they may include ritualistic intervals, I am not convinced that the campaigns and assemblies of the Federations are rituals in the sense that, say, the Memorial Day ceremonies of the American civil religion are rituals. But even if we extend the concept of ritual to include such occasions, perhaps only a small though influential sector of American Jewry are participants. In terms of regularity and duration, American Jews participate much more in the synagogues than in the Federations; although Woocher may be correct in his assertion that the Federations are the most dynamic organizations of American Jewry, the synagogue is probably still the most important institutional context of the group identity of American Jews, and what Woocher terms their "civil religion." Social considerations and "consumer preferences" rather than deeply held religious convictions often determine the choice of a particular synagogue, and I doubt whether the denominational divisions within American Judaism make much difference to the synagogue's function of expressing and evoking sentiments of unity and commitment. For a minority of American Jews, the sense of a moral community may be tied to their participation in the Federations, but for a larger proportion, the American synagogue, with its extensive social and cultural functions that go far beyond the strictly religious sphere, is still more important. Woocher's thesis is that the unity of American Jewry is to be understood in terms of the sacralization of its "secular" institutions. My inclination would be to put greater emphasis on the secularization of its "religious" institutions. STEPHEN SHAROT Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Recently Completed Doctoral Dissertations

Ran Aaronsohn The Hebrew University, 1986 "Hamoshavot ha'ivriot bereishitan uterumat habaron Rothschild lehitpatehutan, 1882-1890" ("The Jewish Colonies at Their Inception and the Contribution of Baron Rothschild to Their Development, 1882-1890") Dianne C. Ashton Temple University, 1986 "Rebecca Gratz and the Domestication of American Judaism" Ron Bartour The Hebrew University, 1987 "Hasiyu'a hakonsulari haamerikani layishuv hayehudi beerez yisrael beshalhei hatekufah ha'otomanit 'ad lemilhemet ha'olam harishonah, 1856— 1914" ("American Consular Aid to Jews in Eretz Israel in the Twilight of the Ottoman Rule, Until the Outbreak of the First World War, 1856-1914") Boyna Lee Blustein St. Louis University, 1986 "Beyond the Stereotype: A Study of Representative Short Stories of Selected Contemporary Jewish American Female Writers" Barbara Stern Burstin University of Pittsburgh, 1986 ' 'Poland to Pittsburgh: The Experience of Jews and Christians Who Migrated to Pittsburgh After World War II" Bryan Cheyette Sheffield University, 1986 "Jewish Stereotypes in English Fiction and Society, 1875-1914" Moshe Chizik Tel-Aviv University, 1987 "Hayahas shel hashomer haza'ir latnu'ah hakomunistit, levrit hamo'azot umekomo baevoluziah haideologit vehapolitit shel hashomer haza'ir beerez yisrael bashanim 1936-1948" ("The Attitude of Hashomer Hatzair toward Communism and the Soviet Union, and Its Role in the Ideological and Political Evolution of Hashomer Hatzair in Palestine, 1936-1948) Lynn R. Davidman Brandeis University, 1986 "Strength of Tradition in a Chaotic World. Women Turn to Orthodox Judaism" Yehoshua Freundlich The Hebrew University, 1987 "Hamediniut hazionit likrat hakamat hamedinah, August 1946-Mai 1948" ("Zionist Policy Towards the Establishment of the State of Israel, August 1946-May 1948") Shmuel Click Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1986 "A Comparison of Israeli Education Legislation to Halachic Literature and Jewish Community Enactments" (Hebrew text) 426

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427

Ruth Yu Hsiao Tufts University, 1986 "The Stages of Development in American Ethnic Literature: Jewish and Chinese American Literatures" Stephen John Jauchen Baylor University, 1986 "The Messianic Ideal in Ludwig Lewisohn and Elie Wiesel" Judith Lee Vauper Joseph State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1986 "The Nafkeh and the Lady. Jews, Prostitutes and Progressives in New York City, 1900-1930" Eleanore Parelman Judd University of Denver, 1986 "Raising Children Jewish—Maintaining Ethnic Identity" Felicia Karo Tel-Aviv University, 1987 "Mahane Skarzhisko-Hamina: Mahanot 'avodah bamishtar hanazionalsozialisti bitekufat milhemet ha'olam hasheniyah" ("The Skarzhisko-Hamina Camp: Labor Camps Under the National-Socialist Regime During the Second World War) Linda Gordon Kazmack George Washington University, 1986 "The Emergence of the Jewish Women's Movement in England and the United States 1881-1933: A Comparative Study" Shlomo Kless The Hebrew University, 1986 "Pe'ilut ziyonit shel plitim yehudiim bivrit hamo'azot bashanim 1941—1945 vekesher hayishuv hayehudi beerez yisrael 'imahem" ("Zionist Activity of Jewish Refugees in the USSR Between 1941-1945 and the Connection of the Yishuv in Eretz Israel with Them") Thomas Kolsky George Washington University, 1986 "Jews Against Zionism: The American Council for Judaism 1942-1948" Yaffa Kuperman Tel-Aviv University, 1987 "Pe'ilut shel hatnu'ah haziyonit beromaniah umaavakehah bashanim 19441949" ("Zionist Movement Activity and Struggle in Romania, 1944-1949") Ellen Lasser LeVee University of California, Berkeley, 1986 "Rationality: American Jewry's False Messiah" Carolyn Lipson-Walker Indiana University, 1986 "Shalom Y'All: The Folklore and Culture of Southern Jews" Sandra Beth Lubarsky Claremont Graduate School, 1986 "Interreligious Dialogue—Four Jewish Responses to Religious Pluralism" Stuart B. Moskowitz Catholic University of America, 1986 "The Cochini Transformed: Emerging Ethnic Identity Among South Indian Jews in Israel" Michael Jerry Ochs Harvard University, 1986 "St. Petersburg and the Jews of Russian Poland, 1862-1905" Wendy Orent University of Michigan, 1986 "In the Panther's Skin: The Politics of Identification Among the Georgian Jews of Israel" Marilyn Beke Reizbaum University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1985 "James Joyce's Judaic 'Other': Texts and Contexts" Rachel Rozhanski Tel-Aviv University, 1987 "Mifleget hapo'alim hasozialistit hayehudit po'ale zion bearzot habrit, De-

428

Recent Dissertations

cember 1905-October 1931" ("The Jewish Socialist Labor Party Poale Zion in the United States, December 1905-October 1931") Itta Shedletzky The Hebrew University, 1987 "Havikuah hasifruti vehasiporet ba'itonut hayehudit begermaniah, 1837— 1918" (' 'Literaturdiskussion und Belletristik in den Judischen Zeitschriften in Deutschland 1837-1918")


VI Edited by Ezra Mendelsohn

Guest Symposium Editor: Richard I. Cohen

Symposium—Art and Its Uses: The Visual Image and Modern Jewish Society Richard I. Cohen, The Visual Dreyfus Affair: A New Text? Ziva Amishai-Meisels, The Artist as Refugee Milly Heyd, The Uses of Primitivism: Reuven Rubin in Palestine Vivian Mann, Forging Judaica: The Case of the Italian Majolica Seder Plates Michael Berkowitz, Art in Zionist Popular Culture and Jewish National Self-Consciousness Chone Shmeruk, Yiddish Adaptations of Children's Stories from World Literature Irit Rogoff, Max Liebermann and the Painting of the Public Sphere Vivianne Barsky, R.B. Kitaj and the "Jewishness of Jewish Art" Essays Alfred Hoelzel, Thomas Mann's Attitudes to Jews and Judaism: An Investigation of Biography and Oeuvre Charles Liebman, Ritual, Ceremony and the Reconstruction of Judaism in the United States Hagit Lavsky, The Distinctive Path of German Zionism 429

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Studies in Contemporary Jewry

Review Essays George Mosse on The Nazi Doctors . . . Plus reviews and a listing of recent doctoral dissertations

Note on Editorial Policy Studies in Contemporary Jewry is pleased to accept manuscripts for possible publication. Authors of essays on subjects generally within the contemporary Jewish sphere (from the turn of the century to the present) should send three copies to: The Editor, Studies in Contemporary Jewry Institute of Contemporary Jewry The Hebrew University Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel Essays must not exceed thirty-five pages in length and must be double-spaced throughout (including indented quotations and footnotes). Reviews must not exceed one thousand words per book. Unsolicited material should be sent no later than April 1.

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume V: Israel: State and Society, 1948-1988 (Studies in Contemporary Jewry)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Volume XXI: Jews, Catholics, and the Burden of History (Studies in Contemporary Jewry) (v. 21)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XVIII: Jews and Violence: Images. Ideologies, Realities (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 18)

Jews and the Sporting Life: Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXIII

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XIX: Jews and the State: Dangerous Alliances and the Perils of Privilege (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 19)

Sephardic Jewry and Mizrahi Jews (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Vol XXII)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XIII: The Fate of the European Jews, 1939-1945: Continuity or Contingency? (Studies in Contemporary Jewry)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume VIII: A New Jewry? America Since the Second World War (Vol 8)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume IX: Modern Jews and Their Musical Agendas (Vol 9)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XII: Literary Strategies: Jewish Texts and Contexts (Vol 12)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XII: Literary Strategies: Jewish Texts and Contexts (Vol 12)

Jews and Gender: The Challenge to Hierarchy (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 16)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume VII: Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning (Vol 7)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume III: Jews and Other Ethnic Groups in a Multi-ethnic World (Vol 3)

Edison Denisov (Contemporary Music Studies, V. 8)

Contemporary Northern Irish Society: An Introduction (Contemporary Irish Studies)

Contemporary Spanish Cultural Studies

Byzantine Jewry in the Mediterranean Economy

Life and Death in Freud and Heidegger (Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies 6) (Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies)

Prisms (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

Real Essentialism (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

Contemporary Issues in Intellectual Disabilities (Disability Studies)

Studies in Contemporary Phrase Structure Grammar

Solidarity (Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture)

Professions in Contemporary Drama (Theatre Studies)

Germany Since 1945 (Studies in Contemporary History)

Deleuzian Encounters: Studies in Contemporary Social Issues

Ethical Issues in Contemporary Society

Reflexive Embodiment in Contemporary Society

Reflexive Embodiment in Contemporary Society

Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume V: Israel: State and Society, 1948-1988 (Studies in Contemporary Jewry)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Volume XXI: Jews, Catholics, and the Burden of History (Studies in Contemporary Jewry) (v. 21)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XVIII: Jews and Violence: Images. Ideologies, Realities (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 18)

Jews and the Sporting Life: Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXIII

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XIX: Jews and the State: Dangerous Alliances and the Perils of Privilege (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 19)

Sephardic Jewry and Mizrahi Jews (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Vol XXII)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XIII: The Fate of the European Jews, 1939-1945: Continuity or Contingency? (Studies in Contemporary Jewry)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume VIII: A New Jewry? America Since the Second World War (Vol 8)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume IX: Modern Jews and Their Musical Agendas (Vol 9)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XII: Literary Strategies: Jewish Texts and Contexts (Vol 12)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XII: Literary Strategies: Jewish Texts and Contexts (Vol 12)

Jews and Gender: The Challenge to Hierarchy (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 16)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume VII: Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning (Vol 7)

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume III: Jews and Other Ethnic Groups in a Multi-ethnic World (Vol 3)

Edison Denisov (Contemporary Music Studies, V. 8)

Contemporary Northern Irish Society: An Introduction (Contemporary Irish Studies)

Contemporary Spanish Cultural Studies

Byzantine Jewry in the Mediterranean Economy

Life and Death in Freud and Heidegger (Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies 6) (Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies)

Prisms (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

Real Essentialism (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

Contemporary Issues in Intellectual Disabilities (Disability Studies)

Studies in Contemporary Phrase Structure Grammar

Solidarity (Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture)

Professions in Contemporary Drama (Theatre Studies)

Germany Since 1945 (Studies in Contemporary History)

Deleuzian Encounters: Studies in Contemporary Social Issues

Ethical Issues in Contemporary Society

Reflexive Embodiment in Contemporary Society

Reflexive Embodiment in Contemporary Society

Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society

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