OSTEUROPA is an interdisciplinary monthly for the analysis of politics, economics, society, culture and contemporary events in Eastern Europe, East Central Europe and Southeastern Europe. A forum for East-West dialogue, OSTEUROPA addresses pan-European topics. The journal was founded in 1925 and prohibited in 1939. Since 1951, OSTEUROPA has been pub- lished by the German Association for East European Studies in Berlin: <www.dgo-online.org> OSTEUROPA is member of eurozine network: www.eurozine.com ISSN 0030-6428 Abstracting and Indexing services: OSTEUROPA is currently noted in: European Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, Interna- tional Political Science Abstract, Journal Articles Database, Periodicals Index Online, Public Affairs Information Service, Social Science Citation Index, Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Osteuropa, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Editors: Dr. Manfred Sapper, Dr. Volker Weichsel, Olga Radetzkaja English Copy Editor: Ray Brandon OSTEUROPA Schaperstr. 30. D-10719 Berlin Tel. ++ 49 +30 / 30 10 45 81 [email protected] <http://osteuropa.dgo-online.org/> Inspection copies, single issues and subscriptions to OSTEUROPA should be ordered from OSTEUROPA. Annual rates (12 issues): € 84 institutions and individuals; € 49 students. Single issues: € 10.00, special issues depending on length € 15.00 - € 32.00. Ray Brandon, Manfred Sapper, Volker Weichsel, Anna Lipphardt Impulses for Europe. Tradition and Modernity in East European Jewry Xxx pp., 11 maps, xxx illustrations Berlin (Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag) 2008 € 24.00 ISBN 978-3-8305-1556-2 Cover: Mark Rothko (1903–1970): No. 12. 1949. Oil on canvas (171,5 x 108,1 cm) © Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Rothko was born on 25.9.1903 as Marcus Rothkowitz to a Jewish family in the then Russian town of Dvinsk (today Daugavpils, Latvia). With his parents he emigrated to the United States in 1913, where he became one of the most famous painters of the 20th century. The book is kindly supported by the Foundation “Rememberance, Responsibilty and Future” Impulses for Europe Tradition and Modernity in East European Jewry Editorial Impulses for the Present 5 Foreword A New Look at Europe’s Jewish Past 6 Antony Polonsky Fragile Co-Existence, Tragic Acceptance The Politics and History of East European Jews 7 Dietrich Beyrau Disasters and Social Advancement Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe 25 Remembrance between Scylla and Charybdis The Public and Scholarly Treatment of Eastern Europe’s Jewish Heritage D. Bechtel, M. Brenner, F. Golczewski, F. Guesnet, R. Heuberger, A. Lipphardt, and C. Kugelmann 47 Topoi of East European Jewry Steven Aschheim Reflection, Projection, Distortion The “Eastern Jew” in German-Jewish Culture 61 Gershon Hundert The Impact of Knowledge The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe 75 Micha Brumlik From Obscurantism to Holiness “Eastern Jewish” Thought in Buber, Heschel, and Levinas 89 The Heritage of East European Jews Anke Hilbrenner Civil Rights and Multiculturalism Simon Dubnov’s Concept of Diaspora Nationalism 101 Jascha Nemtsov “The Scandal was Perfect” Jewish Music in the Works of European Composers 117 Marina Dmitrieva Traces of Transit Jewish Artists from Eastern Europe in Berlin 143 Omry Kaplan- At the Service of the Jewish Nation Feuereisen Jacob Robinson and International Law 157 Egl÷ Bendikait÷ Intermediary between Worlds Shimshon Rosenbaum: Lawyer, Zionist, Politician 171 Manfred Sapper Overcoming War Ivan Bloch: Entrepreneur, Publicist, Pacifist 179 Jewish History and Transnational Memory Anna Lipphardt Forgotten Memory The Jews of Vilne in the Diaspora 187 Katrin Steffen Disputed Memory Jewish Past, Polish Remembrance 199 Ansgar Gilster The Place Does Not Speak Photography in Auschwitz 219 Magdalena Fiddler as a Fig-Leaf Waligórska The Politicisation of Klezmer in Poland 227 Zofia Wóycicka 1,000 Years in a Museum The History of Polish Jews 239 Semen Charnyi Integration and Self-Assertion The Jewish Community in Russia 247 Dmitrii El’iashevich A Stormy Turn for the Better Maksim Mel’tsin Jewish Studies in Russia 255 Anatolii A Reluctant Look back Podol’s’kyi Jewry and the Holocaust in Ukraine 271 Vytautas Toleikis Repress, Reassess, Remember Jewish Heritage in Lithuania 279 Marlis Sewering- The Rediscovery of the Jews Wollanek Czech History Books since 1989 289 Diana Dumitru Moldova: The Holocaust as Political Pawn The Awkward Treatment of Jewish Heritage 301 Felicia Waldman From Taboo to Acceptance Romania, the Jews, and the Holocaust 311 Обзоры 327 Maps The Roman numerals refer to the colour map inserts Jews in East Central Europe ca. 1900 I.1 Jewish Population in Europe 1933 I.2 Jewish Population in Europe 1945–1949 I.3 Jewish Population in Europe 2005 I.4 The Murder of the Jews: Area of German Occupation and Selected Camps II.1 The Murder of Europe’s Jews: Number of Victims II.2 Camps for Jewish Displaced Persons 1945–1957 II.3 Jewish Periodicals in Europe II.4 Jewish Museums in Europe II.5 Jewish Studies in Europe II.6 Yiddish, Geographical Distribution. 15th–19th centuries 79 Depicting the Camps in Words: Varlam Shalamov and Reassessments of the Gulag System [= OSTEUROPA 6/2007]. 440 pp., € 24.00, ISBN 978-3.8305-1219-6 Impulses for the Present Anyone who talks about Jewish life and the Jewish heritage cannot ignore Eastern Europe. The East European Jews are a paragon of frontier crossings, transnationalism, and the transfer of religion, tradition, language, and culture. From the 18th century onwards, most of the world’s Jewish population lived in Eastern Europe. Between 1870 and the First World War, some 3.5 million Jewish emigrants left their home- lands, predominantly the Russian Empire and Habsburg-ruled Galicia. This emigra- tion was the starting point for the founding of new Jewish communities in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, and Palestine. The majority of American Jews are descended from East European Jewry. In Israel, this is the case for more than half of the Jewish population. Some 80 per cent of Jews living in the world today have roots in Eastern Europe. Despite this mass emigration, Eastern Europe remained the centre of Jewish life. Be- fore the Second World War, Poland was home to the largest Jewish community in Europe. The lives of 3.5 million Jewish Poles were closely intertwined with those of their non-Jewish neighbours in the areas of economics, society, and culture. In the Soviet census of 1939, over 3 million people classified themselves as being of “Jew- ish nationality”. Lithuania was at the time a lively centre of religious and secular Jew- ish culture. This rich Jewish culture in Eastern Europe was almost completely wiped out in the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis and their accomplices. To this day, the Holocaust continues to shape our view of Jewish history. In Germany, East European Jews were for decades seen only as “dead Jews”. François Guesnet has formulated this perspective in the strongest of terms. He argues that this way of looking at history implicitly amounts to a continuation of the totalitarian perspective of the German master race. All that is perceived, he writes, is the genocide, and this ignores the indi- vidual lives, hopes, and aspirations that were extinguished. It is precisely this deficit that the volume at hand seeks to correct by drawing attention to the Jewish heritage in Europe’s present. The history of the East European Jews is not the history of an exotic, isolated minority. Jews and non-Jews influenced one an- other’s lives. East European Jewish history is inextricably intertwined with the history of Europe, but it is not a closed chapter of that history. The thoughts and actions of East European Jews continue to affect the world around us. They provide impulses for music, art, philosophy, political thought, and international law. This thought is some- times extremely relevant to contemporary issues. For example, Simon Dubnov’s re- flections on diaspora nationalism from the early 20th century have insights to offer multicultural societies today. This volume deals with more than heritage. It challenges widespread topoi and clichés about East European Jews. It asks what place the Jews have in national memory cul- tures. Despite resistance, there is a growing willingness to integrate Jewish life and the impact it had into national memory cultures in Eastern Europe as well. And fi- nally, the country studies to be found here address the Jews still living in Eastern Europe and the signs of re-emerging Jewish life. Manfred Sapper, Volker Weichsel, Anna Lipphardt OSTEUROPA 2008, Impulses for Europe, p. 5 A New Look at Europe’s Jewish Past This volume represents a joint project between OSTEUROPA and the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future (Stiftung “Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft”). The foundation was established in 2000 on the initiative of the Federal Republic of Germany and German industry and commerce, in order to make pay- ments to former forced labourers and other victims of the National-Socialist dictator- ship. At the same time, the foundation was given the task of promoting a discussion of history that addresses both the present and the future. This task acquires a special dimension with regard to Jewish history. By murdering the Jews of Europe, the Nazis also sought to eradicate Jewish history and culture. This pol- icy of annihilation continues to cast a shadow on the present. A recent study of German school textbooks found the depictions of German-Jewish history “deficient, unbalanced, and therefore distorted”.1 This history has been reduced to the Shoah. Pupils learn al- most nothing about the previous 1,700 years of Jewish life in Germany and its influence on German politics, culture, and society. Similar shortcomings can be found in historical accounts written for a general readership and in exhibitions. As important as it is that a general humanistic education includes the history of the break with civilisation that was the Shoah, it is just as vital that Jewish history be conveyed as an integral part of Ger- man history.