The Jewish Journal of Sociology

THE JEWISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY VOLUME II NO. 2 NOVEMBER ig6o CONTENTS New Conditions of Life among Jews in the Diasp&a Jacob Lestschins/cy ig Jewish Art as a Minority Problem Heinrich Strauss 1.7 Impressions of French Jewry Today Georges Levitte 172 The. Roman Jewish Community: A study in Historical Causation Stephen P. Dunn 185 Trends in Anglo-Jewish Occupations V. D. Lipman 202 The Ottoman Legacy to Israel Edwin Samuel 219 Anthropological Structure of the Jewish People in the Light of Polish Analyses Jan Ccekanowslci 236 Book Reviews The Converts of San Nicandro Alfredo Ravenna 244 San Nicandro: A Sociological Comment Joseph Ben-David 250 Shorter Notices 258 Notes on Contributors . 265 Chronicle P. Gli/cson 266 PUBLISHED TWICE YEARLY on behalf of the World Jewish Congress by William Heinemann Ltd, 15-16 Queen Street, London Wi Annual Subscription £i.z.o (post free)—Single Copies $25 6d net Applications for subscription should be addressed to the. iWanaging Editor, The Jewish Journal of Sociology, 55 New Cavendisit Street, London Wi S EDITOR Morris Ginsberg MANAGING EDITOR Maurice Freedman ADVISORY BOARD R. l3achi (Israel) 0. Klineberg (USA) Andre Chouraqui (France & Israel) Jacob Lestschinsky (Israel) S. N. Eisenstadt (Israel) Eugene Minkowski (France) Nathan Glazer (USA) Louis Rosenberg (Canada) J. Katz (Israel) H. L. Shapiro (USA) A. Tartakower (Israel) © THE WORLD JIIWISH CONGRESS 1960 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER AND TANNER LTD FROME AND LONDON C2 NEW CONDITIONS OF LIFE AMONG JEWS IN THE DIASPORA Jaob Lestschinsky HE WHOLE FACE of the Jewish people has changed radically before our eyes: in its geographical distribution over Tcontinents and countries, as well as its concentration in various localities; in its biological potentialities; in its socio-econOmic structure and differentiation into classes; its political position, problems, and trends; in its linguistic and cultural milieu and hence its opportunities for national creativity, and in its balance between assimilationist and nationalist forces. Jewish history abounds in massacres and wholesale expulsions, in persecutions and mass migrations, which in relatively short periods of time produced radically new situations and completely altered the geographical, political and cultural circumstances of the majority of the people. Suffice it to mention the decline of the highly developed and influential Spanish-Portuguese Jewry, which gave the Jewish people its medieval philosophy and rich Hebrew poetry. Overt apostasy of a large part of this Jewry, and the marranism of another considerable part, led to the liquidation of a large portion of the creative energies of an exceptionally gifted branch of the Jewish people. Those who remained true to their faith settled in backward countries, with the result that the creative springs of this wing of Spanish-Portuguese Jewry very soon ran dry. Nevertheless, there has never been such profound and thoroughgoing change in the living conditions of the great majority of the Jewish people as in the last few decades, and particularly in the last twenty years. For, although European Jewry alone suffered the great catas- trophe of the recent past, the destruction of this abundant and gushing fountainhead of political, social, national and historical values and movements had the deepest and most far-reaching effect upon the national fate of the Jewish people; a most comprehensive effect with '39 JACOB LESTSCHJNSKY respect to the possibilities and prospects of national creativeness in the newly arisen Diaspora centrcs, but equally with respect to the further political and economic development of the State of Israel and of its future spiritual and cultural complexion. The following prime factors led to the revolutionary change in the life of the Jewish people: (a) Migration and, in the last stage, a4yalz (migration to Israel). The stream ofJewish wanderers in the past hundred years, and particularly in the last decades, was of such scope and of such profound and many- sided influence on all aspects ofJewish life, that this phenomenon must be regarded as the most important and powerful factor in the evolution ofJewish life. From 1840 to 1953 over five million Jews, or haifa million more than the total Jewish population of the world in 1840, left their old homes. This is apart from the more than five hundred thousand Jews who migrated within the limits of Europe from East European countries to Western Europe. The picture becomes even more vivid if we take only the last sixty years. During this period over four million Jews left their old homes and took up the wanderer's staff. No other people in the world has known such a degree of intensive migration. Migration is a two-sided process. On the one hand, Jewish wandering in the last hundred • years scattered the existing Jewish communities over scores of countries and regions. On the other, it created new centres of Jewish life. The wandering in the main affected East European. Jewry, which contained the great majority of the Jewish people, a majority deeply rooted in its own national customs and creative processes. This -historic Jewish centre existed in political, economic, cultural, and spiritual conditions highly favourable to a national creative life. To be sure, it was not only migration which adversely influenced the East European Jewish. centre; no less a role in the reduction of the national potentialities of East European Jewry was played by the dismemberment of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, the two conglomerates of peoples and ethnic groups where the Jewish minority found objective possibilities of remaining true to itself. We are speaking here of the objective conditions of Jewish life and cultural creativity. That economically and politically Jews fared very, badly in Russia and in certain parts of Austria (such as Galicia) is well known. Historically viewed, external fears and internal creativity. are not mutually contradictory. Indeed, the Jewish migrations of the last period are the best and clearest proof of how apposite the words 'out of the strong came forthi sweetness' are to Jewish life in the -Diaspora. Did not the Jewish mass emigration from Eastern Europe (which was opposed by not a -few representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia, both the assimilated and 140 JEWS IN THE DIASPORA the nationalist but anti-Zionist, as well of a whole political school of thought in Jewish life, the Bund) virtually save the lives of millions of Jews? The physical rescue of millions of Jews made possible the rise of two new centres: the numerical one in North America and the spiritual one in Israel. Migration produced two new centres in place of the one in Eastern Europe. (b) The great massacre, which is unequalled both in the number of victims it claimed and in its methods of murder, and which mechani- cally altered the balance of forces within the Jewish people. It wiped out one-third of the Jewish people, and virtually the whole East European wing, especially that part of it where, after the Bolshevik Revolution (which itself cut off a very large part of this centre), there was con- centrated almost the whole energy of this wellspring ofJewish creativeness. Of Polish-Lithuanian Jewry not more than io to 12 per cent survived. The recently arisen Jewish settlements are still in the initial stages of adapting to new conditions and cultural environments. The destruction of East European Jewry is fraught with grave consequences for the State of Israel also, for in the last thirty years the Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian Jews were the principal builders of the Jewish State and the most enthusiastic proponents of the Zionist ideal. The loss of the influx of cultural and spiritual forces from Poland and.Lithuania, and partly from Rumania and Hungary, is no doubt felt much more keenly in the Diaspora communities than in the State of Israel, where being on one's own ground inspires courage and confidence in what is already present and in the new forces and potentialities which daily spring up. From a broader national viewpoint, however, and from the standpoint of a spiritual centre resting on a large Jewish population, the situation in the State of Israel is much more tragic than in the Diaspora, where the national and cultural prospects are regarded even by optimists as not very rosy. So much for the two basic developments which have radically changed the face of the Jewish people. Let us now turn to the results of these changes, so that we may have a clear picture of the national resources in the countries of the Diaspora and, probable national prospects in the new situation. The following fundamental developments are the chief result of the manifold changes which have taken place. (a) Nearly all the old deeply-rooted Jewish communities have dis- appeared—communities with thousand-year-old traditions, equipped with societies, organizations, and institutions, politically and culturally adapted to their environment. Nearly 90 per cent of all the Jews are now to be found, geographically, politically, economically, and culturally, in wholly new countries. As communities they have been living in these countries at the'most for half a century or so, but in many 141 JACOB LESTSCHINSKY cases only for the last score of years. It follows that the vast majority of the Jewish people are now living in conditions which are unfavour- able to an organic continuation of the past. Many of the national and spiritual values accumulated in particular circumstances are bound to be lost in the new conditions. In many eases it is necessary to begin all over again. What is perhaps the oldest people in the world is faced with practical and cultural tasks which are usually the fate of a young people just launched upon its historical course.

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