CONTENTS Zionism and the Jewish People, 1918-Ig6o: from Minority to Hegemony W

VOLUME XLII! : NUMBERS 1 and 2 2001

CONTENTS Zionism and the Jewish People, 1918-Ig6o: From Minority to Hegemony W. D. RUBENSTEIN Conflict, Adjustment, and Compromise: The Case of a Yemenite Moshav RACHELSHARABY Fieldwork Among Hassidicjews: Moral Challenges and Missed Opportunities WILLIAM SHAFFIR Defining Antisemitism: The Goldsmid Libel Trial, 1917-1918 EDNA BRAD LOW The Kibbutz: Comings and Goings HAROLD POLLINS Book Reviews Chronicle

Editor:Judith Freedman OBJECTS AND SPONSORSHIP OF THE JEWISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The Jewish Journal qf Sociology was sponsored by the Cultural Department of the World Jewish Congress from its inception in I959 until the end of I98o. Thereafter, from the first issue of I 98 I (volume 23, no. I), the Journal has been sponsored by 1\1aurice Freedman Research Trust Limited, which is registered as an educational charity by the Charity Commission of England and Wales (no. 326077). It has as its main purposes the encouragement of research in the sociology of the Jews and the publication of The .Jewish Journal of Sociology. The objects of the Journal remain as stated in the Editorial of the first issue in I959' I' I! 'This Journal has been brought into being in order to provide an international I vehicle for serious writing on Jewish social affairs ... Academically we address I ourselves not only to sociologists, but to social scientists in general, to historians, to philosophers, and to students of comparative religion . ... VVe should like to stress both that the Journal is editorially independent and that the Opinions expressed by authors are their own responsibility.'

The founding Editor of the JJS was Morris Ginsberg, and the founding ~1anaging Editor was l\.1aurice Freedman. Morris Ginsberg, who had been Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, died in I970. Maurice Freedman, who had been Professor of Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics and later at the University of Oxford, succeeded to the title of Editor in I97I, when Drjudith Freedman (who had been Assistant Editor since I 963) became Managing Editor. Maurice Freedman died in I 97 5; since then the Journal has been edited by DrJudith Freedman.

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Volume XLIII Numbers 1 and 2 2001

CONTENTS

Zionism and the Jewish People, 1918-Ig6o: From 1-'linority to Hegemony W. D. RUBINSTEIN s Conflict, Adjustment, and Compromise: The Case of a Yemenite Moshav RACHELSIIARABY 37 Fieldwork Among Hassidie Jews: Moral Challenges and Missed Opportunities WILL lAM SHAFFIR 53 Defining Antisemitism: The Goldsmid Libel Trial, I 9 I 7- I9 IS EDNA BRADLOW The Kibbutz: Comings and Goings HAROLD POLLINS 86 Book Reviews 92

Chronicle I I2 Books Received I I7 Notes on Contributors II7

Published by Maurice Freedman Research Trust Ltd

ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION INSTITUTIONS: £20.00 (u .S. $35.00) INDIVIDUALS: £15.00(U.S. $26.oo) SINGLE COPIES: £10.00 (U.S. $18.00)

Applications for subscriptions should be sent to The Jewish Journal of Sociology, 187 Gloucester Place, London NW1 6BU, England. Telephone: 02o-7262 8g39 EDITOR Judith Freedman

ADVISORY BOARD jACQUES GuTWIRTH (France) MARLENA ScHMOOL (Britain) ERNEST KRAusz (Israe0 WILLIAM SHAFFIR (Canada) HAROLD PoLLINS (Britain) NoRMAN SoLOMON (Britain) S. J. PR AIS (Britain) B. WASSERSTEIN (Britain)

© MAURICE FREEDMAN RESEARCH TRUST L TD 2001

PRODUCED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY MANE V PUBLISHING, LEEDS BOOKS REVIEWED

Authors Titles Reviewers Page A Cohen and Israel and the Politics of]ewish \V. D. Rubinstein 92 B. Susser Identity

A.J. Kershcn, ed. LangiJ(lgt, Labour and 1\figration H. Pollins 94 S. \V. Massil, ed. The Jewish Year Book. 2001, ]. Djamour 98 5761-5762

J. l'vledawar and Hitler's Gift: Scientists ~Vho Fled .Nazi I. Finestein 103 D. Pyke Germany

R. A. Rockaway But He Was Good to His Afother: The H. L. Rubinstcin 105 Lives and Crimes qf]ewish Gangsters

J. Stratton Coming Out]wish: Constructing H. Pollins 108 Ambivalent Identities

3 NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS

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4 ZIONISM AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE, rgr8-rg6o: FROM MINORITY TO HEGEMONY W. D. Rubinstein

HE aim of this essay is to examine the fortunes of the Zionist movement between the First World War and the post-Second T World War period, and especially to analyse the extent and reasons for its remarkable unpopularity among the Jewish people during most of the inter-war years. During that period, Zionism was a weak and almost marginal movement among most European Jews, let alone those in the 'New Diaspora' like the United States. While its popularity increased in the late I 930s in the wake of Hitler's uncompromising antisemitism, only during the Second World War did it assume the central position in the Jewish world which it has held since I 948. Although aspects of the weakness of the pre-war Zionist movement are known to historians, so far as I am aware there has been no general examination of this topic, or one based on quantitat­ ive evidence. In any consideration of this subject, there is also a temptation to read history backwards, with Zionist triumphalism centrally embedded in the unfolding of European Jewish history before the Holocaust and, in particular, with the Zionist 'masses' of Eastern Europe prevented from emigrating to their destined home­ land by the British. 1 As will become clear, such an interpretation approximates to the opposite of the truth.

Shekel-Holding Probably the most objective way of gauging the relative strength of Zionism among the Jewish people in this period is from the statistics of'shekel-holding', that is, of the number of dues-paying members of the Zionist movement. One became a 'shekel-holder' by paying annually a small sum of money- two shillings in Britain, 50 cents in the United States, less in the poorer countries of Eastern Europe- to the local Zionist organization, which entitled one to vote for delegates to the biennial World Zionist Congress. For this reason, the number

The}eu.!l"sh]oumal q[Sociolog}', vol. 43, nos. I and z, 2001. 5 W. D. RUBINSTEIN of shekel-holders rose considerably in the year of a Zionist Congress, as each Zionist party or faction would attempt to increase its own votes, and thus attempted to recruit as many shekel-holders as possible. Shekel-holding was, it seems, open to any Jew of any age, although one had to be aged I 8 or older to vote for delegates to a Zionist Congress and 24 to serve as a delegate.2 For this reason, the figures presented here probably include few persons under I 8, although there appears to be no information on this point. Comprehensive national figures exist about shekel-holding for the inter-war period until I 935; it has proven surprisingly difficult to obtain detailed national breakdowns of shekel-holding for the years between I 935 and I 946-47 - although some more general statistics do exist, which will be examined below. Before turning to the figures themselves and their meaning, it might be worth noting that these statistics do not seem to appear in any English-language history of Zionism or biographies of its leaders, or in any standard reference work on modern Jewish history, as significant as they apparently are for understanding the popularity or otherwise of Zionism and the evolution of Zionism to a central place in the identity of the Jewish people. There are obvious and manifest reasons why these figures are underestimates of the actual strength of the Zionist movement. Sheer inertia prevented many supporters of Zionism from purchasing a shekel. During the whole of the inter-war period in Poland and in other poorer countries of Eastern Europe, and during the Depression elsewhere, some ardent Zionists were certainly too poor to buy a shekel (although one must also bear in mind here the equally low figures for the prosperous countries of the world during the affluent I920s). Openly committed Zionists in Stalinist Russia, after I928-29, were automatic candidates for the firing squad, and no shekels were in fact sold in the Soviet Union after I929-30. Afro-Asian Jews outside the larger and more Westernised cities of Egypt, Iraq, and a few other places, were probably beyond the Zionist network entirely, as were Jews in other remote localities. There were, unquestionably, many 'spectator Zionists' who supported the movement without actually joining it. On the other hand, one should also bear in mind that all of the years selected for detailed national analysis in Tables 2-4 were years of Zionist Congresses, when Zionist bodies made great efforts to enlist any and every potential supporter. In the years between the biennial Zionist Congresses, shekel-holding decreased markedly, and the true hardcore of support for Zionism might well have been considerably lower than the figures suggested in Tables 2-4. It will be seen from Table I that, for instance, while in I 925 (the year of a Zionist Congress) 638,0I7 persons purchased a shekel, this number declined to only 2 I 4,384 in the 'off-year' of I 926, despite comparative 6 ZIONISM: 1918-Ig6o

prosperity. Between the I 935 and I 937 Congresses, and despite the growing menace of Nazism, shekel-holding declined from 978,033 to only 293,964, before rising to 928,850. Another relevant question which might be considered in assessing these figures is the impact ofVladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionist movement. Officially a component of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) since its foundation in I925, it withdrew in I935 to become the New Zionist Organization (NZO). Supporters of Jabotinsky claimed that the NZO had 7 I 3,000 active members in September 1935. 3 This figure is obviously an exaggeration ofRevisionist strength. In elections to the Eighteenth World Zionist Congress in I 933, the Revisionists elected 43 delegates with a total vote of 96,8 I 8.4 The crucial plebiscite among Revisionists on withdrawing from the World Zionist Organization in r 935 was carried by I 67 ,ooo to 3,ooo. 5 A figure of, say, I 50,000 additional Revisionists whose totals ought to be added to the WZO figures from I 935 (of 978,033) seems reasonable and probably generous; this would take account of those NZO voters who also continued to buy shekels in the mainstream WZO, for instance among Mizrachi supporters. This also approximates to the vote of Herut (the Revisionist political party) in the first Israeli Knesset election of I 949, when - admittedly in utterly changed circum­ stances- it received I 1· mandates among the Knesset's 120 members.

TABLE 1. Total Number of Shekel-Holders, I92I-I949

1921 778,487 1936 293,964 1922 373,217 1937 g28,Bso l + 15o,ooo NZO J = c.1 ,o]B,B:,o 1923 584,]65 1938 375.740 1924 300,'267 1939 1,042,054 l+Iso,oool'\ZO] = c.!,Ig2,o54 1925 638,o1 7 1940 357.794 1926 2 I 4,384 1941 306,418 1927 416,]67 1942 350,377 1928 21],550 1943 413,802 1929 38],106 I9H 511,241 193° 201,250 1945 67s,ooo 193 1 42s,gB7 1946 l ,843>526 1932 152,214 1947 I ,8]0,243 1933 6gi,393 1948 1 ,87g,B7s 1934 239.901 1949 t,8g2,]6t 1935 g]8,033

The overall strength of the Zionist movement, and the trends in its support during the inter-war period, are set out in a series of tables, whose statistics are striking. Table One sets out the total number of shekel-holders in each year between I 92 I and I 949· Table Two presents the numbers of shekel-holders in all countries in I 930-3 I and I 934-35, and Tables Three and Four examine the distribution of Zionist strength in more detail. As Table One indicates, shekel­ holding stood at 778,487 in I 92 I, soon after the promulgation of the Balfour Declaration of I 9 I 7 and the deliberations for awarding the 7 W. D. RUBINSTEIN Palestine Mandate-with the legal constitution of a Jewish Agency­ to Great Britain. Shekel-holding then experienced a steady and relentless decline during the prosperous I g2os until I 929, when only 387,106 Jews bought a shekel. Shekel purchases then began to edge upward, beginning (even before the rise of Hitler) in I 93 I, and then during the decade of fascism rose dramatically, reaching a peak of I,042,054 in I939, or I,Ig2,054 if one adds the estimated I5o,ooo members ofJabotinsky's NZO. After the Second World War, and in a much-reduced world-wide Jewish population, Zionism experienced very rapid growth, with shekel-holding reaching nearly two million in I 948, when the State oflsrael was established. These figures, however, have to be viewed in the context of the world's overall Jewish population. In early I939, there were appar­ ently about I6,7I7,oooJews in the world, of whom about 3,I8o,ooo lived in the Soviet Union (where shekel purchase was illegal), giving a world-wide Jewish population able to purchase shekels of I 3,537 ,ooo.6 To be meaningful, this figure must itself be reduced by, say, one-third to eliminate children and teenagers unable to buy a shekel, thus suggesting an adult Jewish population world-wide of about g,o2g,ooo. Earlier in the inter-war period, this world-wide adult Jewish popula­ tion was lower, probably about eight million in I 92 I (when some shekel purchases were still permitted in the Soviet Union). It will thus be seen that no more than about g. 7 per cent of the world's adult Jewish population were members of the Zionist movement in I92I, and only I 3.2 per cent of world adult Jewry in I939, on the eve of the Holocaust7 Moreover, these figures are for Zionism's 'good' years, those of the biennial Zionist Congresses; in alternate years, dues­ paying Zionist membership was lower still- indeed, almost derisory. Although shekel-sales rose as a result of Nazism, Zionism was still far from being a majority movement among the Jewish people. In mid- I 949, the world's Jewish population was estimated by Le on Shapiro and Boris Sapir at I I ,303,350.8 If accurate, this suggests that the negative effects of the Holocaust and other consequences of the Second World War, balanced by growth in the Jewish population in the Diaspora and in Palestine/Israel, was to decrease the world's Jewish population by about 5,4I4,ooo in the decade I939-49· The estimate of the Jewish population in the Soviet Union suggested by Shapiro and Sapir of 2,ooo,ooo, appears to be too low by perhaps 300,000, taking into account the statistics of the I 959 Soviet Census. It would thus seem that the net decrease in world Jewry between I 939 and I 949 was actually about 5· I million. In any case, Soviet Jewry was outside the zone of shekel sales, and its numbers must be deducted from the world total ofJews. To be comparable to the earlier figures, the post-war statistics of Zionist membership must therefore be compared with this lower total. In I 94 7-49, there were thus about 8 ZIONISM: I9IH-Ig6o 9,303,000 Jews outside the Soviet Union, of whom probably about 6.2 million were adults: thus about 30 per cent of adult world Jewry were, at that time, dues-paying Zionists, three-six times the normal figure for the inter-war period. However, even this figure is an underestimate, since sales to Jews in Palestine/Israel are included; these totalled 218,273 in 1946-47, 233,643 in 1947-48, and 665,549 in 1948-49.9 At that time Palestinian/Israeli Jewry was growing rapidly, increasing from about 6oo,ooo to 95o,ooo by mid-1949. All these Jews were, in some real sense, 'Zionists', and the Palestinian/ Israeli figures for 1946-47 and 1947-48 have to be readjusted upward. Thus, perhaps as many as one-third of the world's adult Jews were dues-paying Zionists at the time oflsraeli independence. 10

TABLE 2. Shekel-Holders by Country, 1930-31 and 1934-35, with Percentages of All Jews

Jewish Shekel-Holders % % Population Iggo-31 1 934~35 '930-31 1934-35 {'ooo)

Western Europe Belgium Go 2962 42 53 4·9 7· I Britain :wo 15,5 15 20,001 5-2 6.7 Finland 2 446 266 22.3 13.1 France 260 2045 6!27 L2 2-4 Italy 4" 2104 llli 7 4-4 3·8 Netherlands "0 1goo 3101 1.6 2.6 Scandinavia 14 49° 68g 3·5 4·9 Spain, Portugal 28 67 ggS 0.2 1.2 Switzerland '" 2400 2194 13·3 12.2 Central Europe Austria 192 8g6g I ],2 16 4·7 g.o Czechoslo\'akia 357 J6,qo 25,6!6 4·5 7-2 Danzig 9 759 !495 "·4 16.] Germam· 5°3 '7-548 5],202 3·5 11.3+ Luxemb~urg 190 498 1g.o 49·8

Eastern Europe Poland (incl. Vilna) r. 2363 88,472 234• r G5 3·7 9·9 Galicia East { 49,220 t28,7o5} c. 750 9·4 22.9 Galicia \\'est ~ 42,886 70,6jO ljl,591

Total Poland 3,113 lj9,142 405,756 5·' 13.0

Estonia 5 667 !62! 13·3 3~·.!.4 Latvia 93 6466 19,508 7·0 21.0 Lithuania 155 !1,288 47,088 7·3 30·4- Bulgaria 46 4435 4-84-2 9·6 10.5 Greece 73 2000 464-8 2. 7 6.4 445 ljOO 5763 0.3 1.3 ~~~~~z } 375 534° 13,883 1.4 2.6 Bcssarabia '07 8400 dl,223 4·2 7·8 Bukovina 93 3416 11,74' 3·7 12.6 Transylvania 82 10,752 J4,242 13·4- 17·4-

Total Romania 757 28,208 s6,o8g 3·7 ).4

9 W. D. RUBINSTEIN

Jewish Shekel-Holders % % Population '930-31 1934-35 193°-3 1 1934-35 ('ooo)

Yugoslavia 68 6g28 2893 10.2 4·3 Other Countries Argentina 253 2042 6465 o.S 2.6 Brazil so 1500 4'53 3·0 8.3 Chile 9 554 848 6.2 9-4 Other Latin America 75 493 746 0.7 9·9 U.S.A. 4·300 ]g,o]o '34,493 L8 3·' Canada t.)6 [ 1,000 10.335 7·' 6.6 ( 1929-30) Australia & i'\ew Zealand 30 1928 460 6.4 '·5 South Afi-ica go 10,]52 J4,242 11.9 '5·8 Palestine 400 37,og6 112,623 9·3 28.2 Egypt 64 t28] 739 2.0 L2 1\lorocco 200 !083 634 o.s 0.3 Tunisia 66 ISO I "S 2.3 0-3 Other 1\liddlc East 250 1954 250 o.8 o., (Iraq, Iran, etc.) 1•933-341 .Far East so 493 746 LO LS

World Total 425,987 978,033

The same situation, a surprising Jack of active support for Zionism before the late I 930s, is evident in the tables comparing Zionist support by country. Table Two shows shekel-holding by country in I930-3I and I934-35, comparing this to the Jewish total in each country. In considering these data, one should bear in mind that the territorial figures given here are those used by the Zionist Organization, and did not necessarily coincide with actual national boundaries. In particular, 'Poland' was considered a separate unit from 'East Galicia' and 'West Galicia', while 'Romania', 'Bessarabia', 'Bukovina', and 'Transylvania' were counted separately. In Table Two these have been grouped together to coincide, wherever possible, with actual national boundaries. On the other hand, several countries were grouped together by the Zionist Organization for the purposes of collecting statistics- for example 'Australia and New Zealand' and 'Spain, Portugal, and Tangiers' .11 A glance at these tables reveals the failure of the organised Zionist movement to win the active allegiance of more than a minimal percentage of world Jewry before the late I 930s at the earliest, and the extreme spottiness of Zionist support, with areas of comparative Zionist strength and weakness. The relative strength of Zionism in Galicia (22.9 per cent of Jews in I934-35) compared with the rest of Poland (9.9 per cent) is well known, as is the relative strength of Zionism in South Africa (I 5.8 per cent in I934-35). 12 The comparatively high percentage of Zionists in Switzerland might be accounted for by the presence of many Zionist institutions there. Some local anomalies, especially in very small communities, cannot so readily be explained - for instance the

10 ZIONISM: rgi8-Ig6o relatively high percentage of active Zionists m Finland or Luxembourg. TABLE3. Zionist Percentage by Largest Jewish Populations

Population ('ooo) % Iggo-31 % '934-35

L U.S.A. 4,300 L8 3·' 2. Poland 3"3 5·' 13.0 3· U.S.S.R. 26oo 4· Romania 757 3·7 ).4 5· G('rtnany sog- 3-5 1!.3+ fi. Hungary H5 o.3 1.3 7· Palestine 400 9·3 28.2 8. Czechoslovakia 357 4·5 ).' g. Britain goo 5-2 6.7 '"· France 250 L2 2.4 "· Argentina 2 53 o.8 2.6 "· Austria '9' 4·7 g.o

TABLE4. Jewish Communities with the Highest Number of Shekel-Holders, 1930-31 and 1934-35

'930-31 1934--35

L Poland '59,142 L Poland (. 4-80,]5()" 2. U.S.A. 79,0]0 2. U.S.A 134,4-93 3· Palestine 37,096 3· Palestine [ 12,623 4· Romania 28.208 4· Gcrmanv 5],202 5· Germany 1 7·54-8 5· Romani<~ s6,o8g 6. Czcchoslova~ia 16,1]0 6. Lithuania 4],08/l 7· Britain 15,5 15 7· Czechoslovakia 25,616 8. Lithuania I 1,288 8. Britain 20,001 9· Canada 11,000 g. Latvia 1g,so8 w. South Africa 10.]52 '"· South Africa [4,242 "includes estimate fOr Rc\·isionists. More light is shed on these matters by considering Tables 3 and 4, which detail the Zionist percentages in the world's largest Jewish communities in the 1930s and the 10 Jewish communities with the highest numbers and percentages of dues-paying Zionists in 1930-3 I and 1934-35. From Table Three it will be seen that the Zionist percentages grew steadily in the 1930s among the very largest communities, but almost everywhere remained su -prisingly small, even among highly-politicised communities and th 1se which were directly threatened by rising antisemitism, such a,; Romania and Hungary. In nations like the United States, France, and Argentina, the Zionist movement received the active support of only a derisory percentage of the Jewish community, even if these figures actually underestimate Zionist strength. Tables Four and Five detail the territorial areas (as employed in the Zionist Organization's statistics) with the highest numbers and percentages of shekel-holders, as a

I I W. D. RUBINSTEIN proportion of the total Jewish population, in 1930-31 and 1934-35. (Only communities of 3000 or more Jews are included here.) TABLE5. Territorial Areas with the Highest Percentage of Dues-Paying Zionists as a Proportion of the Total Jewish Population, 1930-31 and 1934-35 (Communities of gooo +Jews Only)

'930-31 1934-35

L Transylvania '3·4 L Estonia 3'2-4 2. Estonia 13·3 2. Lithuania 3°·4 3· Switzerland 13-3 3· Palestine z8.2 South Africa 4· [ '·9 4· Galicia 2'.!-9 Yugoslavia 5· !0.2 5· Latvia 21.0 6. Bulgaria g.6 6. Transylvania 17-4 7· Galicia 9-4 ). Danzig !6.7 8. Palestine 9·3 B. South Africa ts.s Danzig 9· 8.4 g. Poland '5·4 w. Lithuania 1·3 10. Switzerland 12.2 "· Canada ).1 11. Germany 1!.3+ 12. Bulg-aria 10.5

Variations In The Growth Of,Zionism Throughout Europe, Zionism increased in popularity during the 1930s most obviously as a result of heightened antisemitism, especially the rise of Nazism. The rise of Hitler directly accounted for the increase in the number of dues-paying Zionists in Germany from 17,548 in 1930-31 to 57,202 (among a reduced German-Jewish population) in 1934-35. Plainly, this increase was directly related to the Haavara Agreement between the Zionist movement and the Nazi regime which accorded the Zionist movement a number of'privileges' and facilitated immigration to Palestine. 13 By and large, the main areas of relative Zionist strength are broadly consistent with Ezra Mendelsohn's view that Zionism was likely to be strongest, in Eastern and Central Europe, in areas 'where a cultural vacuum developed as the result of the change of regimes -Bohemia and Mora via, Slovakia, the Polish Kresy, Bukovina and ... Transylvania [and Bessarabia ]' where 'the Jews had to fall back upon their own rcsources'. 14 Nevertheless, there is also a certain lack of rhyme or reason in accounting for the regions where Zionism was strongest. It was particularly strong in Lithuania, for instance (and in South Africa, which is often seen as a Lithuanian off-shoot), a fact which was noted again and again by Zionist emissaries, but in sociological terms there was not much difference between Lithuanian Jewry and any other part of the former Pale. By the mid-1930s (although not in 1930-31) Lithuania's Zionist percentage was exceeded only by the very small Jewish community of 12 ZIONISM: rgr8-rg6o Estonia, which numbered only 4566 in I 934· There were, to be sure, considerable subtler differences, especially the existence of 'Litvak' yeshivah culture (but centred in Vilna, which, from I 9 I 8until I 939, was situated in Poland), and a strong Haskalah (Enlightenment) tradition. 15 Nevertheless, the socio-economic structure of inter-war Lithuanian Jewry was very similar to that elsewhere in Eastern Europe. 16 Above all, it is difficult to identify any objective 'push factor' in Lithuania which might have heightened the popularity of Zionism there. Originally favourable to Jewish interests soon after independ­ ence, the Lithuanian government fell into the hands of an authoritar­ ian leader of the familiar Eastern European type, Antanas Smetona, ) in December I 926. While antisemitism grew during the I 93os, it I remained marginal and relatively minor. Although increasingly overtly fascist in its organization, the Lithuanian government was bitterly hostile to Nazi Germany, fearing that Germany had designs on Memel and other Lithuanian territories (which Germany actually seized in March I939)· During the I93os, Jewish schools continued to be subsidised by the Lithuanian government. Jewish domination of the Lithuanian commercial sector declined precipitously in the I 930s, as ethnic Lithuanians became much more prominent. However unfortunate for the Jews, this at least removed a potent source of heightened antisemitism. It is, thus, perhaps surprising that socialism did not become more popular among Jews in Lithuania, especially the youth; above all, it is extremely difficult to account objectively for the strength of Lithuanian Zionism at that time. The number of shekel-holders also rose, although not as dramatic­ ally, in Danzig and Austria. One wonders how much of this was as a result of viewing Zionism as an 'insurance policy' for relatively favourable emigration in a world where opportunities for Jewish emigration were limited, and how much represented a 'sincere' intellectual reorientation to the Zionist viewpoint. About 53,200 German Jews emigrated to Palestine in the period I933-4I (when emigration from the Reich was prohibited), in addition to about 7300 from Austria; it is also estimated that about I Boo German and 2200 Austrian Jews entered Palestine illegally. 17 Emigration of German Jews to Palestine declined from 8,700 in 1936 to only 3,700 in 1937, largely, it seems, because of fears engendered among would-be immigrants by the Arab Revolt of I936. 18 Moreover, many of the comparatively favourable terms for emigration to Palestine under the Haavara Agreement were cancelled by the Nazis in I937, when Nazi policy became increasingly anti-Zionist. Only about I 3,ooo German Jews migrated to Palestine in I 938-39, compared with the tens of thousands who emigrated elsewhere, in the wake of Kristallnacht. In part this was because of the MacDonald White Paper restrictions of May I939 and other barriers to German Jewish migration to Palestine, I3 W. D. RUBINSTEIN but in part this also represented the numerical limitations to a Zionist motive among Germany's Jews. Only about 4,100 Austrian Jews emigrated to Palestine in the years I938-4I inclusive, compared with more than I 20,000 who went elsewhere. 19 Throughout Europe one is struck again and again by the extremely limited active support given to Zionism, even in the mid- I 930s and certainly before. This was the case in countries in the so-called 'zone of antisemitism' hallmarked by endemic hostility to Jews: in Romania, where only 2.6 per cent of Jews were shekel-holders in I934-35, for instance; or in Hungary, where only 0.3 per cent ofJews were shekel­ holders in I930-3I and only r.3 per cent in I934-35· These percentages appeared to owe little or nothing to the objective 'need' for Zionism by the Jewish community, but more to pre-existing sociological factors, the success enjoyed by local Zionist leaders, and the strength of competing Jewish ideologies and broader political movements. Until just before the outbreak of the Second World War, although support for Zionism did indeed rise, it simply failed to capture the support of more than a minority of Jews anywhere. This was the case in the two largest centres of Jewish life, Poland and the United States. As has been extensively documented, in ideological terms inter-war Polish Jewry was broadly split into three very large ideological/political movements - Zionism, Bund Socialism, and Strict Orthodoxy's Agudas Israel - as well as a number of smaller movements such as the Folkists (non-socialist advocates of Yiddish­ based secular Jewish autonomy), Jewish Communists, and quasi­ assimilationists. Zionism (itself bitterly divided into rival factions) was by no means the largest of these movements- striking evidence, once again, of the weakness of Zionism even in milieus where one might have expected it to be strongest. Regarding inter-war Poland, statistics are available for kehilla elections during the mid- I 920s, elections which were fiercely contested by many Jewish parties and movements. At 3 I 3elections for Jewish community councils which occurred between I924 and I927, the Zionist parties - bitterly divided among themselves - collectively received about 27 per cent of the vote 20 The Agudas Israel, the Strictly Orthodox party known for its extreme anti-Zionism received 44 per cent of the vote, while the anti-Zionist Bund and the Folkists, received respectively I 3 and six per cent. During the I 930s, there is only fragmentary evidence that Zionism grew in popularity among Polish Jewry, and the notion of the 'Zionist masses' eager to emigrate to Palestine is largely mythical. The chief beneficiary of the sharp deterioration in the political and economic status of Polish Jewry at that time appears to have been the Bund, whose basic principles included the maintenance of an autonomous Yiddish-based Jewish culture in Poland grounded in socialism, the forging of an alliance '4 ZIONISM: tgt8-tg6o with Polish socialist forces, and bitter hostility to Zionism per se. 21 Most famously, in August-September I 936 the Bund won a sweeping victory in the Polish kehillot elections, with both the Zionist parties and Agudas lsraellosing support. 22 These victories were repeated by Bundist candidates in city council elections at that time and in I937-38.23 By I939 the Bund had received a majority of votes cast for Jewish lists in Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna, Bialystok, Lublin, and nine other cities in Poland (out of 35) with a Jewish population of Io,ooo or more. 24 To quote M arcus, 'in the last years before the outbreak of the I 939-45 war, the Bund emerged as the strongest Jewish party in Poland.'25 The surprising collapse of Zionism as a political force in Jewish Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe on the eve of the Holocaust is surely, to us, the most striking ideological feature of the time. Ezra Mendelsohn has summarised the situation: 'By the late I 930s [Zionism] was in a state of serious decline'. 26 Other evidence about inter-war Polish Jewry suggests a very similar set of conclusions, that the Zionist movement received the support of a minority of no more than, at most, about 25 to 30 per cent of Polish Jewry (and usually less); it was never able to break through this ceiling level of support and, in the I 930s, may have been declining in popularity compared with other Jewish ideologies. In I 93 I the Polish census required all respondents to declare their 'native language'. The Zionist movement requested its supporters to claim their native language to be Hebrew, rather than Yiddish or Polish. Needless to say, such assertions were false- there were very few, if any, native speakers of Hebrew in Poland - but this served as something of an indication of belief in the Zionist doctrine that Hebrew was the 'authentic' Jewish language, while Yiddish and other languages were a sign of Jewish exile- galut. Only 7.8 per cent of Poland's Jews declared Hebrew to be their native language 27 'Hebrew speakers' exceeded ten per cent of the Jewish population in only a handful of places, most notably in the City of Cracow (in western Galicia), where 39.8 per cent indicated Hebrew to be their mother tongue, only marginally fewer than the number of 'Yiddish speakers' (23,3I6 vs. 22,487). 28 In the City of Warsaw, however, which was much more typical, 298,849 (88.9 per cent) of Jews declared Yiddish to be their native language compared with I9,I8o (6.2 per cent) who claimed to be Hebrew speakers, and I 8, I I I (5.8 per cent) whose native language was Polish. 29 In I934 Vladimir Jabotinsky presented his so-called 'Revisionist Petition' to the Polish government, signed by his followers; it stated: ' ... the only way of normalizing my existence is for me and my family to settle in Palestine ... I ask the Polish government to intervene with the mandatory powers so that the unjust immigration restrictions may be revised'.30 '5 W. D. RUBINSTEIN Although some Zionists might have been reluctant to sign any petition drawn up by Jabotinsky, few could have disagreed with its sentiments; it was signed by 2 I 7,ooo persons, only about I 3 per cent of adult Jews in Poland. 31 The weakness of Zionist youth movements and Zionist education during this period, both in Poland and elsewhere, has also been stressed by expert analysts. For instance, Arthur Ruppin (both an immensely talented demographer and a committed Zionist) pointed out that in I939 'world membership' of all Zionist youth groups totalled about I 8o,ooo, 'about one-third of [whom] are in the English-speaking world'. 32 Assuming that such groups catered for Jewish youth aged I3 to 22, it would appear that the total world Jewish population in this age group (outside the Soviet Union and Palestine) was about I,75o,ooo. Thus, barely 10.3 per cent ofJewish youth belonged to a Zionist youth group very shortly before the start of the Holocaust. Perhaps more tellingly, Ruppin notes that the Hechalutz organization, 'which prepares its members for Palestine, both technically and culturally', the 'outstanding' Zionist youth group, had just 85,000 members in 'Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Roumania, Czechoslovakia, France, and other countries', of whom 'I7,500 ... were being given occupational training'.33 The population of Jewish youth in these countries could not have numbered less than 9oo,ooo or so at that time, again indicating that less than IO per cent of European Jewish youth were being 'prepared' for emigration to Palestine just before the outbreak of the war. In Poland itself, membership in Zionist youth groups was unim­ pressive. In 1938 Hashomer ha-Tsair, the socialist Zionist youth organization, had only 24,246 members in all of Poland (excluding Galicia). 34 In 1930, Betar,Jabotinsky's youth body, had precisely 103 members in Cracow (Jewish population s6,srs), 268 in Bialystok (Jewish population 39,I65), and just 51 in Lodz (Jewish population 202,497). 35 Hebrew education and culture were also in decline in inter-war Poland. In 1936, 33· 7 per cent of all children in Jewish elementary schools in Poland attended a Tarbut or Yavneh school, where Hebrew predominated as the language of instruction. 36 However, 'most Jewish children received a Polish education in the public schools, where Polish was the language of instruction', while 'the traditional [i.e. Orthodox J religious education was still ascendant among all types ofJewish education' in inter-war Poland." Only 2059 students were studying in Tarbut (Hebrew language) gymnasiums (high schools) in all of Poland in 1937-3738 Moreover,39 Hebrew literature in Poland deteriorated due to lack of both writers and readers. A local Hebrew theatre did not really exist. The Jews of Poland did ~ot maintain a Hebrew daily newspaper, and even a weekly could not survive. ZIONISM: Igi8-Ig6o Zionism In Western Countries Outside the 'zone of antisemitism' in Eastern Europe, the situation in the inter-war period for Zionism was somewhat paradoxical: although it was never notably strong, it had an important following almost everywhere. In particular, the Jewish communities of the English-speaking world failed to produce explicit and systematic Jewish ideologies, with mass followings, to compete with Zionism's rivals in Poland- Bund Socialism and the Agudas Israel. Socialist and Marxist ideologies were, of course, enormously popular among many second-generation Jews in New York, London, and elsewhere, but lacked the intensely organised Jewish life of the Bund in Poland or (apart from orthodox Communism) its deep-seated hostility to Zionism per se. Strictly Orthodox communities as yet hardly existed in the English-speaking Diaspora, and were confined to very small minorities. Ideological hostility to Zionism existed among a component of modern Orthodox and, particularly, Reform Jewry, although its importance and thrust have probably been misunderstood. In Britain, mainstream Anglo:J ewry was centred in the United Synagogue, headed by the Chief Rabbi. United Synagogue moderate Orthodoxy was probably at the zenith of its influence and popularity in that period and was rapidly absorbing the children of upwardly-mobile East End immig­ rants.40 The United Synagogue evolved a characteristic style, emphasising decorum, tradition, and British patriotism - religiously Orthodox but neither extreme nor exotic, which proved extremely successful during the inter-war years. The attitude of mainstream British Jewry as represented by the United Synagogue and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, closely aligned to it, towards Zionism, is often misunderstood. While it was generally opposed to 'political Zionism', in common with most of the Anglo-Jewish spectrum it strongly supported 'practical Zionism' - the economic and cultural development ofJewish Palestine- in large , part through British-led investment and infrastructural funding. The Anglo-Jewish mainstream opposed 'political Zionism' because well­ established Jews in Britain did not (with the rarest of exceptions, such I as the Liberal Jewish leader Claude E. Montefiore) construeJudaism , purely as a religion, with no nationality components, nor did they as a rule really fear charges of 'dual loyalties', as is often suggested. Instead, they believed that their own nationality instincts and loyalties, as British Jews, ought to be channelled into British and British Empire patriotism and loyalty, for which so many had fought only a few years earlier. The fact that there was little economic or social antisemitism in inter-war Britain, while British fascism remained a marginal, unpopular movement, meant that this was an entirely realistic attitude to adopt- in contrast to the bleak future of patriotic German Jews. I7 W. D. RUBINSTEIN Moreover, many British Jews (and British Zionists) probably feared that an independent but tiny Jewish Palestine would quickly be destroyed by the Arabs or some foreign power, and would need British protection indefinitely in order to survive. The outlook of United Synagogue Orthodoxy was closely echoed by some Jewish communit­ ies throughout the Empire, especially in Australia where the Jewish community's recognised leaders, such as Sir Isaac Isaacs and Rabbi Jacob Danglow, for the most part enunciated very similar views before the Second World War - and, indeed, for some years afterwards. All of this must be placed in a wider context: during the inter-war years the British Empire was still arguably the world's most important geo-political unit, dominating one-quarter of the globe's land surface. Although under strain, it had most emphatically not collapsed; indeed, in many respects it was stronger than ever. Similarly, Britain's traditional institutions had remained intact after I 9 I 8, unlike those of the Continent, and its middle classes were, generally, very prosperous.41 Established Anglo:Jews were thus, with reason, extremely reluctant to reformulate an ideology in which Zionist loyalty acted as a substitute for Empire loyalty- which they finally did (often reluctantly) after I 948. To be sure, British Zionism enjoyed a number of considerable advantages. Most clearly, Britain was the Mandatory Power in Palestine and British Jews found themselves with the honour and responsibility of constituting the Jewish community most directly concerned with the Jewish National Home. This fact alone ensured that all leading British Jews would be compelled to be Zionists in some respect. Nevertheless, it also made dealings between the Jewish community and the British government more difficult and delicate, especially when Zionist and Imperial interests appeared to diverge, as they did with Britain's increasing awareness of Arab nationalism and Arab hostility to Zionism. Britain was also the home of many of the world's leading Zionists of the inter-war years, like Chaim Weizmann, and of leading Zionist benefactors such as the Marks and Sieff families. Thus, while many leading acculturated Anglo:Jewish families were, at best, lukewarm about Zionism, Anglo:Jewish opinion only rarely developed a hostility to Zionism, and, apart from individual anti-Zionists like Edwin Montagu and Claude Montefiore, never developed an anti-Zionist interest group of any size, with the arguable exception of Marxist Jews in the East End during the I 930s, who were, in any case, despised by the established community. The MacDonald White Paper of May I939, which severely limited Jewish immigration to Palestine, was deeply shocking to patriotic and moderate British Jews, including 'practical Zionists', precisely because they were British patriots who trusted the British government.42 'It will be a tragedy of the first magnitude if the result of the conferences I8 ZIONISM: 1918-Igfio now being held [in London J ... be the abandonment or even the modification of the nexus between Palestine and Great Britain which now exists in the form of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate ... The anguish, resentment, disappointment ofJews the world over, if, after more than twenty years, they see such a tragedy take place before their eyes, is difficult to translate into words', wrote Neville Laski in I939·43 Laski, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, was seldom noted for overt criticism of the British government and his deep dismay was echoed by other moderates such ~I as Sir Robert Waley-Cohen, President of the United Synagogue, who regarded the White Paper as 'unworthy of the history of the British Empire'44 Such universal dismay and shock just before the outbreak . of the war was fundamental in reversing the declining position of Zionism in inter-war Britain. Strong just after the First World War and the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, British Zionism gradually but clearly suffered a loss in popularity until about the mid- I 930s. In the East End, for instance, the Zionist movement suffered 'a precipitous decline' in strength, with many youths turning to Marxism and other secular leftist doctrines. 45 Zionism probably remained disproportionately stronger in the north of England, especially in Manchester, which emerged as the centre of Anglo-Zionism. The British situation had some parallels with that in the United States. In America there was, of course, no Chief Rabbi and no national representative body like the Board of Deputies but, rather, a plethora of rival and competing bodies with different constituencies, and very many Jews (and Jewish groups) who stood outside of any national body. Nevertheless, many universally-recognised American Jewish leaders were highly sympathetic to Zionism, arguably more than in Britain- for instance Justice Louis D. Brandeis and Rabbis Stephen S. Wise, Judah L. Magnes, and Abba Silver, all of whom were perhaps expected, given their backgrounds, to be cooler towards Zionism than they actually were. To be Zionist in inter-war America entailed supporting the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine for the persecuted Jews of Europe, not those of the United States who already lived in freedom and would only in the rarest of exceptions contemplate migrating there. It was easy enough to advocate this, especially as it required no lobbying to lower America's restrictive immigration barriers, erected in I 92 I -24. Since America, unlike Britain, had no direct political links with Palestine, its American advocates could also demand anything they wished of Britain, without the careful diplomacy required of Anglo:Jewry in dealings with its own government. Nevertheless, as in Britain many sociological factors also worked against the popularity of Zionism. America's Jewish 'elite' was disproportionately of German background, the descendants of I9 W. D. RUBINSTEIN migrants who had arrived in I 848 or soon afterwards. By the I 930s most American Jews were those who had migrated from the Pale of Settlement in I88I-I924, and had often become Reform or Conservative in religious orientation. Reform was notably cool towards Zionism, with the exception of a minority of rabbis such as Wise. After I932 most American Jews strongly supported the New Deal, with its left-liberal reformist agenda, but aimed at integration into the American middle classes for themselves and their children. Like British Jewry, the American Jewish community also developed a large and visible Marxist minority, especially among university students in New York, a milieu familiar from many biographical works on New York Jewish intellectuals46 Within the vast size of American Jewry, the largest Jewish community in the world, and its complexity, there was ample room for a significant Zionist component, but there is universal agreement that it was, comparatively, a small one. It was noted that New York, the largest Jewish community of all, had disproportionately fewer active Zionists. 47 In I934-35, America's IO largest Jewish communities contained two-thirds of the country's Jews, but only one-third of the membership of the Zionist Organization of America. 48 The largest and probably best-organized Zionist body in America was Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization, which had 31,675 members in I93I and 38,497 in I936.'9 It then grew rapidly (as did other Zionist groups), increasing to 66,ooo members in I939 and 142,665 in 1945 50 Nevertheless, this should be seen in context: there were probably 1.5 million or more adult Jewish women in the United States at that time, and Hadassah's membership represented a tiny fraction of the potential enrolment. Direct membership in the Zionist Organization of America totalled only I 3,000 in I 93 I and I 8,676 in I936, before rising to 43,453 in I939 and I36,63o in I945· 51 Total shekel-holding in the United States stood at 79,070 in I93I and I34o493 in 1935, but then increased to I7I,567 in I94' and 257,086 in i945. By I948 this figure had risen enormously, to 954,886.52 In America, except to a hard core of enthusiasts, Zionism appeared to be a kind of luxury. In no way could it solve the problems of Jews in the United States which, in any case, were categorically different from the problems ofJews in Europe. Compared with other secular ideologies, Zionism was failing to attract American Jewish youth. Although the difficulties facing the Zionist movement differed markedly in Poland and America, the two largest Jewish communities, Zionism's failings were not lost on the movement's leaders. In 1936, for instance, David Ben-Gurion remarked explicitly: ' ... the Zionist ideal has only gained a footing among a minority of the Jewish people. A decisive majority of Jews still remain outside the Zionist Organization'. He attributed this state of affairs to 'assimilation', 'communism', and 'ignorant 20 ZIONISM: Igi8-Ig6o indifference'. 'In Congress Poland ... the number of shekel-payers amounts to ten per cent of the Jewish population ... in the United States [to J no more than three per cent of American Jewry', he lamented. 53

Conflicting Zionist Ideologies Why did Zionism see such little support during most of the inter-war period? On the face of it, the Zionist movement enjoyed a number of advantages which other Jewish ideologies did not: it was, as it were, frangible and malleable, a broad and ambiguous doctrine which an extraordinarily diverse range ofJews could support. Thus, there were Zionist Marxists and Zionist ultra-nationalists like Jabotinsky, often seen as an admirer of Mussolini; there were Strictly Orthodox Zionists and atheist Zionists. While Zionism was in many respects a typical European nationalist movement, emphasising such right-wing desider­ ata as the integrity of the Jewish people as an ethnic group, the legitimacy of historical tradition, and the restoration of historical rights, paradoxically most early Zionists were socialists. The Zionist movement was also uniquely international in its support, unlike other Jewish ideologies (like the Bund) which were confined to specific and limited Jewish milieus. Its leaders included men and women of great talent and enormous dedication. Above all, the Zionist movement had its 'foot in the door' with the promulgation of the Balfour Declaration and the achievements of the Mandate, and Palestine specifically recognised by the League ofNations as a 'national home' for the Jews. Despite these apparent advantages, Zionism also suffered from many disadvantages during most of the inter-war period. Herzlian Zionism was formulated primarily to alleviate the chronic oppression of Jews in the Pale of Settlement. After I 9 I 3, however, the Pale no longer existed and, on paper at least, the successor states of Central and Eastern Europe granted equal rights to Jews- although by the late I g2os it was evident that antisemitism had not disappeared, or even diminished, in most of these areas. Nevertheless, in a real sense, r during the 1920s, and even afterwards, Zionism was a solution without a problem, a state of affairs which continued until Hitler put his stamp throughout Europe. Aliyah to Palestine during that period was often derisory, even when it was comparatively easy. In I 930, for instance, only 4944 Jews migrated to Palestine. The continuing popularity of ideologies like Bundism, which envisioned a Jewish future in a Poland relatively free of antisemitism (or at least with antisemitism reduced to tolerable levels) was itself evidence that many Jews believed that such a future world was not far-fetched, or at least hoped so. Moreover, the solution offered by Zionism to the plight of the Jews in Europe was so extreme that this, in and of itself, diminished its popularity. 21 W. D. RUBINSTEIN Zionism envisioned that, at some date, large numbers would migrate to an area where few Jews had lived for 2000 years, discard the whole of their culture as relics of'exile', and adopt a new language linguistically unrelated to those spoken by European Jewry. Zionism was thus unique among national liberation movements in wishing to discard as inauthentic not merely the culture of their oppressors, but also that of the people to be liberated, condemning Yiddish and Yiddish culture to the scrap-heap. The whole of the iconography, symbolism, and historiography of the Zionist movement was designed to recall the Biblical kingdom of Israel and link the revived Jewish State with it as its continuing successor, with virtually everything in between seen as a lengthy interregnum. 54 Unsurprisingly, very many European Jews plainly regarded the entire Zionist enterprise as quixotic and utopian. Most of all, Zionism appeared to have no programmes or policies to deal with the actual situation of oppression and poverty faced by so many European Jews, apart from migration (at some future date) to a desert. Since Zionism regarded European antisemitism as endemic and irremovable, it had no formula for its direct amelioration. It was in this atmosphere that the famous distinction, first made in Czarist Russia, between Jewish parties of 'hereness' (doikeyt) and 'thereness' became most visible, with the Bund emphatically in the former camp. The Bund (and, for the Orthodox, Agudas Israel, as well as other parties) stood for at least a confrontation with antisemitism, oppression, and poverty; Zionism offered hope in the long term, but, for most Jews, little or nothing in the short term. In the affluent nations of the 'New Diaspora', especially in the United States, there was a pervasive conviction that the 'golden land' for the Jews was America (or, occasionally, Britain or Australia) and while Palestine might well serve as a useful place of refuge for Europe's impoverished Jews, few apart from a handful of absolutely convinced Zionists actually contemplated aliyah for themselves or their families. In Gideon Shimoni's phrase, those making aliyah sought 'downward social mobility', given the dream of creating a 'normal' society with a 'normal' working class. 55 This was the very opposite of the motive which took so many millions ofJews to America and other parts of the 'New Diaspora'. Finally, all strands of Zionism construed Jewish identity in terms of an ethnie (ethnic community or cultural unit), similar to other Diaspora nations like the Armenians or overseas 6 Greeks. 5 This in itself was rejected by many ideologies in the Jewish world as they existed during the interwar years. For instance, many Strictly Orthodox Jews (and, paradoxically, Reform Jews) construed Jewish identity as purely religious, while to conservative and liberal assimilationist Jews, the 'nation' to which Jews belonged was the one where they lived, to which they owed the same obligations and loyalties as any other citizens. The underlying definition of Jewish

22 ZIONISM: Igi8-Ig6o identity offered by Zionism was, thus, rejected by many (perhaps most) groups, and is even today not fully resolved, despite the ubiquity of 'multi-culturalism' and the reality of the State oflsrael. Many of the factors which weighed against the success of Zionism in the interwar period were related to the policies of the movement itself. Two in particular stand out: the Zionist attitude towards immigration to Palestine, and the long-term aims of the Zionist movement regarding a Jewish State. During the inter-war period, the mainstream of the Zionist movement favoured only limited and highly selective immigration of Jews to Palestine, in particular of an elite of youthful, committed chalut;;im (pioneers) who would reclaim the soil by their own efforts. This selective policy began with the first aliyah in I 88 I and was, most certainly, a hallmark of mainstream labour Zionism. 57 It was one of the factors which set mainstream Zionism apart from Jabotinsky's Revisionism. In his last book, The Jewish War Front (I 940), Jabotinsky scathingly referred to this as a policy of'sweet seventeen'- of each faction within the Zionist matrix nominating its own carefully selected young zealots for aliyah. Against this policy, Jabotinsky advocated his 'Evacuation Plan', which envisioned the mass migration of 750,ooo-r.5 million Polish and Eastern European Jews over a ten-year period. Even this policy, it should be noted, presupposed that millions ofJews would remain in Eastern Europe; it never envisioned the literal disappearance, through emigration, of whole communities, as has occurred in areas of Eastern Europe and in the Afro-Asian world since the creation of the State of Israel in I948. Jabotinsky's plans were fiercely opposed by mainstream Zionist leaders. Mapai, the Yishuv's Labour party, led by David Ben-Gurion, opposed Jabotinsky's 'Plan' which (in its words) threatened to 'intro­ duce' large numbers of'lower-class bourgeois (sic) elements into Eretz Israel, upsetting the demographic balance which favoured the ranks of Labour'.58 Davar, Mapai's Hebrew newspaper in Tel Aviv, denounced 'the Fuhrer Jabotinsky who all these years had been busily distorting every sound idea in Zionism ... We Jews will not let ourselves be expelled to Palestine with the help ofPolish antisemites'. 59 Mainstream Zionism's policies of slow, gradual development had constantly been opposed, with Weizmann telling critics at the Zionist Congress of I 93 I in Base!: ' ... if there was another way of building up a country, save dunan by dunan, and man by man, and farmstead by farmstead, again I do not know it' and that he was 'conscious that Palestine lacked the infrastructure to absorb large numbers of immigrants without causing hardship and unemployment'.60 While the British have been criticised by innumerable writers for limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine at this critical time, the very negative and, to us, bizarre and unrecognisable attitude of mainstream Zionism 23 W. D. RUBINSTEIN towards mass Jewish immigration from Europe has never been adequately explained by historians; it can certainly not have increased the popularity of Zionism among the Jewish 'masses' of Eastern Europe. This attitude, moreover, was that held by ,(ionists, not by the Jewish anti-Zionist majority, who opposed mass emigration per se. Another important matter which probably weakened inter-war Zionism, and which certainly set it apart from anything recognisable today, was its attitude towards the establishment of an independent Jewish State in Palestine. Until the so-called Biltmore Declaration of 1942 (and possibly even later) the aims of the mainstream Zionist movement remained the highly ambiguous one of building up a :Jewish national home' (Heimsatte, in the words of the 1897 Base! programme) in Palestine, not that of establishing an independent Jewish State.61 In 1931, Weizmann caused a storm by asserting that he had 'no sympathy ... for the demand for a Jewish majority in Palestine', let alone an independent Jewish State.62 Only after the 1939 White Paper did mainstream Zionist leaders like David Ben­ Gurion reassess their attitudes, and only in the context of the Second World War, as knowledge of the Holocaust began to filter out, did this change fundamentally. One might ask why, given the monstrous spread of antisemitism in Europe in the 1930s, this attitude was not fundamentally altered earlier. Plainly, no Zionist could see into the future and none (even Jabotinsky) could predict the Holocaust. Leaders of the movement were well-aware that the European Jewish 'masses' did not contain a majority of Zionists and believed as well that the careful building up of a successful Hebrew-speaking Zionist infrastructure was necessary to persuade many European Jews seriously to contemplate aliyah. Palestine was still largely a desert, and most Zionists retained grave doubts, based on serious socio-economic and scientific research, that it could successfully absorb millions of Jews. Early independence for Palestine would have meant the establishment not of a Jewish State but of an Arab-majority one, as Arabs continued to constitute a large majority of the country's inhabitants until the War of Independence. As is well-known, serious proposals to create a Jewish mini-state in those areas around Tel Aviv and the Galilee where there was (perhaps) a Jewish majority, as envisioned by the Peel Commission of 1937 (and initially supported with enthusiasm by the British government) split the Zionist movement, since it left 70 per cent of the Mandate land in Arab or British hands.63 Uncompromising demands for an independ­ ent Jewish State threatened to alienate 'constructive Zionists' in the Diaspora. In America, (non-Zionist' (i.e. 'constructive Zionist') mem­ bers of the Jewish Agency and the American Jewish Committee announced that they were opposed to the 1937 proposals for a mini­ state 'on principle', since they considered a Jewish State 'dangerous' to ZIONISM: rgr8-rg6o the Jewish people.64 Zionists also feared that any prematurely inde­ pendent Jewish State would be easy prey for any aggressive foreign power (including Germany or Italy) or for Arab armies seeking revenge, and realistically would need British protection for decades to come. A third way in which Zionism was weakened during the inter-war years was by its division into rival, sometimes almost literally warring, factions. This mainly, but by no means only, entailed the mutual hostility of socialist Zionists and Revisionists. Despite a good deal of mutual admiration, even friendship, between Jabotinsky and Ben­ Gurion, relations between them were normally frigid, with Ben­ Gurion notoriously terming Jabotinsky 'Vladimir Hitler' in Poland in I933.65 Hostility between the two camps was even more extreme. When Chaim Arlosoroff (I899-I933) - head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, and generally seen as the coming man of the Yishuv's Labour movement - was murdered by two unknown persons on Tel Aviv beachfront in June I 933, the Revisionist movement was immediately accused of perpetrating the crime; Abraham Stavsky, a recent emigre from Poland, and a lodger at the home of the editor of the Revisionist weekly newspaper, was arrested 6 for the crime, along with 20 other Revisionists. 5 According to Joseph Schechtman (Jabotinsky's close associate and biographer) 'for those who did not live during that agonizing summer of I 933 it is difficult, almost impossible, to imagine the dreadful atmosphere of violent animosity that permeated Jewish life all over the world, especially in Palestine and Poland'.67 Stavsky was at first convicted and sentenced to death by the local Palestine courts but was then acquitted and freed by a London appeals court. 68 When Jabotinsky visited Brest-Litovsk, Stavsky's home town, 'an incensed mob tried to stone him on the way to the lecture hall'.69 So seriously did the Polish authorities take the threat to his life that they gave him an armed Polish bodyguard 'who followed his "ward" about like a shadow'. 70 Visiting Kaunas, Lithuania, Jabotinsky was greeted by 'a motley coalition of Poalei Zion, Bund, Folkspartei, and communists [who J swore to "avenge" Arlosoroff's assassination, who smashed the windscreen of his car, despite the fact that he was guarded by "two rows of Betarim" ' 71 Although the bitter hostility between the Revisionists and mainstream Zionists was the most extreme example of this internecine conflict, there was also little love lost between the mainstream groupings within Zionism, which were bitter rivals for the immigration permits issued to Europe's Jews (often given to each Zionist grouping for distribution to its enthusiasts), and, like the non­ Zionist ideological factions in inter-war Eastern Europe, were 'way of life' organizations with their own press, youth groups, employment functions, and so on. According to Ezra Mendelsohn, 'The prime 25 W. D. RUBINSTEIN attribute of Polish :Jewish political culture was its extreme divisiveness, factionalism, personal hatreds, and the like .... It does, in fact, require something of a talmudic mind to understand the differences between Left Poalei Zion and Right Poalei Zion in eastern Galicia, and Right Poalei Zion in Congress Poland, Zeirei Zion, Hitahdut, and Dror belonging to the Zionist left'n Much of the bitter factional fighting which has been the hallmark of Israel's political scene since its establishment obviously had its origins in the ideological world ofpre­ I939 EuropeanJewry.'3

-?,ion ism During the I 940s and I 950s During the decade after I 939, Zionism arguably changed almost fundamentally into the movement we have known in recent years. In May I942 an 'Extraordinary Zionist Conference' was held at New York's Biltmore Hotel. More than 6oo delegates, representing America's major Zionist bodies met there; also present were Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, and Nahum Goldmann of the Jewish Agency Executive. (Obviously there were no delegates from war-torn continental Europe.) The Conference adopted a series of important resolutions, the most far-reaching of which declared that, during or soon after the war, 'Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated into the structure of the new democratic world' which would emerge with the Allied victory_,. The resolution also 'urge[ d] that the gates of Palestine be opened; and that the Jewish Agency be vested with control of immigration into Palestine'. 75 At a stroke, then, mainstream Zionism fundamentally changed the entire direction of its programme ,for the first time calling for an independent Jewish State with unlimited, or at least large-scale, Jewish immigra­ tion. By implication, also, independent Palestine was to be detached from British domination but 'linked' to the 'structure of the new democratic world' which would clearly include a predominant American influence. The driving force behind this resolution came from the American Zionist movement which now increasingly took centre-stage within the American Jewish community. The fundamental reasons for this existentialist transformation have been widely disputed, especially the role of the Holocaust in bringing it about. The Western press had carried extensive reportage on the mass killings carried out by the Einsat:::gruppen in the Soviet Union since the autumn of I 94 I, but confirmation of a general plan to exterminate Europe's Jews did not become known in the democracies until August 1942, with the message sent by Dr. Gerhart Riegner, the World Jewish Congress's representative in Geneva, to Britain and the United States- that is, after the Biltmore Conference. 76 It seems likely that anger at the I 939 26 ZIONISM: 1gr8-rg6o White Paper and, in particular, at the Struma tragedy of February I 942 - when that ship carrying 769 Jewish refugees was refused entry into Palestine and all aboard perished when the vessel sank in the Black Sea - were more significant factors. There was also deep frustration at the inability of \'\'estern Jewry to assist Europe's Jews directly: the Biltmore Conference's resolutions moreover called for the creation of'aJewish military force fighting under its own flag and under the high command of the United Nations'. 77 Demands for the creation of a :Jewish army' were among the most common made by American Jewish groups (especially Revisionists) at the time. 78 The transformation of American Zionist attitudes towards Palestine should also be seen in the context of the the wartime mood of the 'Four Freedoms' and of the 'Atlantic Charter' of August I94I, that the war was being fought to rid the world of fascism, oppression, and unemployment, and that an Allied victory would usher in 'the century of the common man'. Demands for Jewish self-determination flour­ ished in this atmosphere. During the war, the American Zionist movement launched a great propaganda drive, which proved to be extraordinarily successful. It included the staging of rallies, letter-writing campaigns, publications, lobbying political notables, and the conversion to the Zionist agenda of non-Zionists and of the previously lukewarm within the American Jewish community; new initiatives proceeded on virtually a daily basis. 79 As news of the Holocaust became ever more incredibly horrifying, the Zionist movement unquestionably became a major beneficiary. A consensus emerged among many sections of American Jewry that, powerless to ameliorate the catastrophe in Europe, an all­ out effort would be made to secure the creation of a Jewish State, a component of what Yehuda Bauer has termed the :Jewish emergence from powerlessness'. By I 945 American Zionism had been trans­ formed, and became central to American Jewish life. It was in an exceptionally strong position to influence the Truman administration in its relations with Britain as the Mandatory power.80 Anti-Zionism in the American Jewish community was increasingly marginalised, and confined to organizations like the American Council for Judaism, which were depicted as representing assimilated, elite families and consisting of 'self-hating Jews'. 81 The transformation of Zionism in Britain occurred along somewhat similar lines, with the I 939 White Paper having a traumatic effect. Even before, however, in January I938, the Board of Deputies of British Jews had passed, by a vote of 2oo-ro, a resolution calling for the creation of 'a Jewish Dominion within the British Commonwealth'82 In November I939 Neville Laski, the popular and effective President of the Board of Deputies, but an opponent of 'political Zionism', unexpectedly resigned. He was succeeded by 27 W. D. RUBINSTEIN Professor Selig Brodetsky, a committed Zionist and also the first Eastern European Jew to head the Board - a post reserved in the past for a Rothschild, a Montefiore, or someone close to them. Brodetsky's election is generally seen as a major turning-point in recent Anglo:Jewish history, with Jews of immigrant Eastern European background and committed Zionists henceforth succeeding 83 to positions of power. By I 945 Zionists were effectively in control of the Anglo-Jewish community, although there remained a surprisingly strong non-Zionist component within Anglo:Jewry until Israel's creation, probably stronger than in the United States. Similar war­ time transformations of consciousness occurred elsewhere in the Diaspora, for example in Australia, where a pro-Zionist conquest of the previously strongly Anglo:Jewish community occurred in I 942-44, engendered by the same forces and by the impact upon Australian Jewry of Eastern European immigrants.84 The mood within the Yishuv might be read in the same light, with a decisive move by the whole community in the direction of achieving independence as quickly as possible, including both moderates like Ben-Gurion and extremist groups like the lrgun Tsvaf Le'umi and Lehi. In January I 944, for instance, l\1enachem Begin, the lrgun's commander, declared a 'revolt' against Britain, initiating innumerable armed attacks. TABLE6. Highest Number of Shekel-Holders by Country, I946-47, with Estimated Percentage of Jewish Population

Country Number Estimated Jewish Population %

L U.S.A. 954.886 s,ooo,ooo 19.1 '· Palestine 2 !8,'273 6oo,ooo g6.4 3· Romania {ro8,88g Transylvania ~ qo,625 350,000 40.2 4· Germany 67,727 c. 18o,ooo 37·6 5· Poland 57,663 c. 150,000 g8.4 G. Argentina SI,6g8 g6o,ooo '4-4 7· Hungary so,634 t6o,ooo 31.6 8. Canada 47.381 tBs,ooo 25.6 g. South Africa 45,610 100,000 45·6 w. Britain 45,093 345,000 Ig.J "· France 20,111 235,000 8.6 12. Bulgaria tg,g84 so,ooo 8.6 '3· Austria 14,397 40,000 g6.o '4· Czechoslovakia 14,o86 ss,ooo 25.6 '5· Brazil 12.628 110,750 "·4

The end of the war, with its definitive revelations of the extent of the Nazi death machine, coincidental with a renewed British deter­ mination to halt Jewish migration to Palestine, let alone an independ­ ent Jewish State, led to an unprecedented rise in shekel-holding and other forms of Zionist activism. Table I shows that there was a world­ wide total of nearly r.g million shekel-holders in the late I 940s - 28 ZIONISM: 1918-1gGo twice the best pre-war figure, despite the catastrophic loss of Jewish numbers during the war. Table 6 sets out the number of shekel­ holders in I 946-4 7 in the I 5 countries with the largest numbers of shekel-holders, and an estimate of the percentage of Jews in each country who were, at the time, dues-paying Zionists. (Population figures, taken from the American Jewish Year Books for I 946-I 950, are subject to very considerable margins of error, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. The very high figures for such countries as Germany, Austria, and Poland reflect the number of Holocaust survivors and Displaced Persons who briefly lived there, and changed substantially during the late I 940s.) It is evident from these figures that the popularity of Zionism, at least as measured by shekel-holding, had increased enormously almost everywhere. There is no reason to suppose that these figures do not reflect a sincere and fundamental transformation of popular Jewish opinion almost everywhere, although in Eastern Europe shekels were often purchased as a kind of potential exit visa for Jews wishing to flee the growing totalitarianism and antisemitism of these regimes. In some Eastern European satellite states, shekel-holding grew to even higher levels in I947-48, before being forbidden by the Stalinist authorities, for instance in Hungary, where 68,334 shekels were purchased in I947/ 48 (compared with 50,634 in the previous year), or in Romania, where I 62,5 I 9 were purchased in I 94 7I 48 - 2 I ,894 more than in the previous year. Given that shekels were sold only to adults, in some countries the ·majority of adult Jews had become dues-paying Zionists, and elsewhere membership in the Zionist Organization probably exceeded that of any other Jewish organization of any kind. Levels of membership in Zionist organizations remained low (where it was permitted at all) among Afro-Asian Jewry (for instance, there were 9503 shekel-holders in I946/ 47 in Morocco, 3874 in Tunisia, and I500 in Egypt), although hundreds of thousands of Jews from these countries would shortly emigrate to Israel. The official policy of the newly-founded State of Israel towards aliyah also changed fundamentally, with widespread rather than 'elitist' and selective aliyah now becoming the goal ofBen-Gurion and other mainstream Zionist leaders. This transformation of attitudes·­ which has never been studied in detail, so far as I am aware- was of course reflected in the Law of Return of6 July I 950, which gave every Jew in the world the right to settle in Israel. The very first legislative act promulgated by Israel's Provisional State Council was to cancel the immigration provisions of the I 939 White Paper. Between May I 948 and the end of I 95 I, 685,000 olim arrived in Israel, doubling its population. Aliyah from the four corners of the world has been one of the most central, characteristic, and successful features of Israel's national life. W. D. RUBINSTEIN Conclusion While most of the newcomers to Israel during its first years of independence were Eastern and Central European Holocaust sur­ vivors, one ofBen-Gurion's most important and striking achievements was to create an entirely new clientele for both Zionism and aliyah from among Afro-Asian Jewry, which had, as noted, stood almost entirely outside the course of Zionist history until then. Ben-Gurion's use - if that is the word - of the Afro-Asian Jewish masses as 'substitutes' for the vanished European Jewish masses may actually rank as his consummate achievement. This achievement was especi­ ally striking in view of the fact that the Jews in the 'New Diaspora', especially the United States, have shown little or no interest in making aliyah and nor have many Jews in Western European countries like France which directly experienced the Holocaust. The Holocaust, it must also be noted, moreover destroyed Europe's reservoir of anti­ Zionist Jewish ideologies and their supporters, especially the sup­ porters of the Bund and the anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews, while Stalin's increasingly paranoid antisemitism and anti-Zionism alienated most Jews from Marxism. 85 By the rgsos, and certainly by the Six-Day War of rg67, Zionism and support for the State of Israel had become central to the self­ definition of most Diaspora Jew. As the American historian Edward S. Shapiro put it, 'So intense was the involvement ofJews with Israel that some sociologists argued that the real religion of most American Jews was "Israelism" '. 66 Although this transformation of con­ sciousness was, as we have seen, extremely rapid, there were remaining pockets of dissent into the r 950s and later, while a true consensus on the centrality of Zionism probably emerged only in the r g6os, in the wake of the Eichmann Trial of r g6o-62 and, in particular, of the Six-Day War. 67 By the rg6os, however, it had become very difficult to imagine an ideological right-wing anti­ Zionism, apart from some elements of Strict Orthodoxy. Most Jewish opposition to Israel's policies and, among some extremists, to its existence, came from the extreme left, especially Trotskyites, fringe Marxists, and 'revolutionary' groups. Among Diaspora Jewry, how­ ever, support for Israel became virtually ubiquitous and served, with the memory of the Holocaust (and, perhaps, with support for Soviet Jewry) to produce what seemed a secular consensus during the three or four decades after the r 950s. There is a good deal of evidence that this consensus is now disintegrating, with religious conflict the most obvious source of disunity. In retrospect, this period of consensus was very unusual in post-Enlightenment Jewish history: the normal state of affairs of the Jewish people during the past 250 years has assuredly been deep internal conflict rather than harmony. ZIONISM: I 9 I8-Ig6o NOTES

I Something of this may possibly be found in David Vital's otherwise excellent account of modern European Jewish history, A People Apart: The Jews in Europe 1789-1939 (Oxford, 1999). 2 Josef Frankel, The History of the Shekel (London, 1952), p. 5· 3 See Joseph B. Schechtman, 'Revisionism', in Basil J. Vlavianos and Feliks Gross, eds., Struggle for Tomorrow: The Modem Political Ideologies of the Jewish People (New York, I 954), p. go, and idem, Fighter and Prophet: The Vladimir Jabotinsky Story: The Last Years (New York, I96I), p. 282. 4 ~Revisionism', ibid., p. 88. 5 Ibid., p. go. 6 Arthur Ruppin, The Jewish Fate and Future (London, 1940 ), p. 35· 7 One curiosity of the data concerns the status of Palestinian Jews. Dues­ paying Zionists in Palestine numbered only Io,soo in Ig2a-2 I, 37,og6 in Ig30-3I, and I I2,623 in Ig34-35. In Ig36 the Jewish population of Palestine was about 40o,ooo, suggesting that more than one-half of its adult population consisted of dues-paying Zionists. On some definitions, however, every Jew in Palestine was a 'Zionist', and suitable upward adjustments might be made in the Zionist tables. 8 Lean Shapiro and Boris Sapir, 'World Jewish Population', in Morris Fine, ed., American Jewish rear Book, Volume 5f, 1950 (New York, I g5o), p. 246. 9 'Shekel Sales in the Years I g46-5o', table provided by the Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem. 10 Another factor here was the growth of Stalinist repression and anti­ Zionism in Eastern Europe. Shekel purchasing was permitted in the Soviet Union's Eastern European satellites until Ig48/49, when no further shekel sales were recorded. In I g4 7/48, shekel-purchasing totalled 68,334 in Hungary, 26,ooo in Transylvania, s8,350 in Poland, and I 36,5 I g in Romania; thereafter, shekel-sales were zero. In Bulgaria, shekel-sales totalled I8,865 in Ig47/48, 4,649 in Ig48/4g, and zero in Ig4g/5o. In Czechoslovakia, the figures were, respectively, I6,562, 8,733, and 7,678, indicating that sales were still permitted. See 'Shekel Sales' in Note 9 above. 11 The Jewish population figures are the best estimates from Arthur Ruppin's Jewish Fate and Future (London, I940), pp. 30-33, generally for the early-mid 1930s. They are subject to margins of error, and also represent a median figure which might, in some cases, have varied widely over the interwar period. Most obviously, Germany's Jewish population (503,000 in Ig33) decreased to 45o,ooo or less by I935 and to 35o,ooo by the end of I g38, while Palestine's Jewish population grew from about I 75,000 in 1g3 I to an estimated 440,000 at the end of Ig38 (Ruppin, ibid.). 12 See Ezra Mendelsohn, 17ze Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars (Bloomington, Indiana, Ig87), pp. Ig, 54 and Gideon Shimoni, Jews and .(ionism: The South African E:'xperience ( I9 IO-I g67), London, I98o. I3 See Francis R. Nicosia, The Third Reich and the Palestine Qyestion (London, Ig85). 14 Mendelsohn, op. cit. in Note 12 above, p. 192. 15 See the illuminating discussion in 1\.:Iendelsohn, ibid., pp. 228-232, I' which, nevertheless, does not fully explain the strength of Zionism in Lithuania. 3I W. D. RUBINSTEIN 16 Ibid., p. 226, where Mendelsohn notes that 'the economic profile of Lithuanian Jewry was of the classic East European type'. 17 Herbert A Strauss, ed., Jewish Immigrants of the Nazi Period in the U.S.A., Volume 6: Essays on the History, Persecution, and Emigration of German Jews (New York, Ig87), p. I97, as reworked in William D. Rubinstein, 17ze Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews From the Nazis (London, I 997 ), p. 3 r. 18 Nicosia, op. cit. in Note I 3 above, p. I 36. 19 Rubinstein, op. cit. in Note I 7 above, p. 25, and Lucy M. Dawidowicz, 17ze WarAgainsttheJews, 1933-45(London, I987),p. 447· 20 Joseph Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1929-1939 (New York, I 983), p. 264. On Agudas Israel, sec Gershon C. Bacon, 17ze Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916-1939 (Jerusalem, I 996). 21 As Bernard K. Johnpoll summarised the matter, 'The World Jewish Congress, a pro-Zionist body, has said that ... it was necessary for the Jews to emigrate [to Palestine] ... The whole idea of mass emigration, the Bund insisted, was based on fraud, and was itself a delusion' Bernard K. Johnpoll, 17ze Politics of Futility: 17ze General Workers Bund of Poland, 1917-1943 (Ithaca, N.Y., I967), pp. 2I6-2I7. On the Bund, see alsoJackJacobs, ed., Jewish Politics in eastern Europe: The Bund at 100 (Basingstoke, 2ooi), and Antony Polonsky, 'The Bund in Polish Political Life, I935-I939', in Ada Rapoport­ Albert and Steven J. Zipperstein, eds., Jewish History: Essays in Honour of Chimen Abramslfy (London, I 988), pp. 54 7-580. 22 Robert Moses Shapiro, 'The Polish Kehilla Elections of I 936: A Revolution Reexamined', in Antony Polonsky, Ezra Mendelsohn, andJerzy Tomaszewski, eds., Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry- Volume Eight: Jews. 23 Johnpoll, op. cit. in Note 2 I above. The Polish Socialist Party also did well at these elections, at the expense of antisemitic and right-wing parties. 24 See Shapiro, op. cit. in Note 22 above, p. 224 and Emanuel Scherer, 'The Bund', in Vlavianos and Gross, op. cit. in Note 3 above, p. I49· 25 ~~!arcus, op.cit. in Note 20 above, p. 293. 26 Ezra Mendelsohn, :Jewish Reactions to Antisemitism in Interwar East Central Europe', in Jehuda ·Reinharz, ed., Living with Antisemitism: Modem Jewish Responses (Hanover, N. H., I987), p. 303. Another important essay by Mendelsohn on this topic is 'Zionist Success and Zionist Failure: The Case of East Central Europe Between the Wars', in Jehuda Reinharz and Anita Sharp, eds., ASsential Papers on Zionism (London, I 996). 27 Ibid., Table 1.9, p. 3 r. 28 Mendelsohn, Jews of East Central Europe, op. cit. in Note I2 above, p. 30. In the City of Cracow, I 0,5 I 7 Jews also declared Polish to be their native language. 29 Ibid., and Table I .8 (p. 30). No statistics exist for this subject subsequent to I93I. 30 Schechtman, op. cit. in Note 3 above, p. 345· 31 Ibid. 32 Ruppin, op. cit. in Note 6 above, p. 3 I7. 33 Ibid. 34 Mendelsohn, 'Zionist Success and Zionist Failure', op. cit. in Note 26 above, p. I84. ZIONISM: rgr8-rg6o 35 Ibid. 36 Chone Shmeruk, 'Hebrew-Yiddish-Polish: A Trilingual Jewish Culture', in Yisrael Gutman, Ezra Mendelsohn, et al., eds., The Jews qf Poland Between Two World Wars (Hanover, N. H., 1989), p. 292. 37 Ibid., p. 294· 38 Ibid., p. 292. Professor Shmeruk also gives a figure of'I2.9I per cent' as the proportion of Jewish children who 'received a total or partial Hebrew education' (ibid.). Taken in context this is very consistent with other indicators of the popularity of Zionism. 39 Ibid., p. 309. 40 W. D. Rubinstein, A. History qf the Jews in the English-Speaking World: Great Britain (London, I996), pp. 234-24I, and by Gideon Shimoni, 'From Anti­ Zionism to Non-Zionism in Anglo-:]ewry, I9I 7-I937', The Jewish Journal qf Sociology, vol. 28, no. I, June 1986 and 'The Non-Zionists in Anglo-Jewry, I937-I948', ibid., vol. 28, no. 2, December I986. 41 W. D. Rubinstein, 'Britain's Elites in the Intenvar Period, I9I8-I939', in Alan Kidd and David Nicholls, eds., The Making qf the British Middle Classes? Studies qfRegional and Cultural DiversifY Since the Eighteenth Century (Stroud, I 998), pp. I 86-202, 42 Rubinstein, History qftheJews, op. cit. in Note 40 above, pp. 254--257. 43 Neville Laski, Jewish Rights and Jewish Wrongs (London, I 939), pp. I 55- I 56. 44 Cited in Robert Henriques, Sir Robert Walq Cohen. 1877-1952 (London, I gGG), pp. 369-70. . 45 David Cesarani, 'The East End of Simon Blumenfeld's "Jew Boy"', London Journal, vol. I 3 (I 987-88), p. 49· The British Communist Party, which certainly attracted many East End Jews in the wake ofMosley, Hitler, and the Depression, was 'steadfastly anti-Zionist' (Henry Felix Srebrnik, London Jews and British Communism, 1935-1945 (London, I 985), p. I 22.) 46 On American Jewry in the inter-war period see (among many other works) Henry L. Feingold, The Jewish People in America: A Time for Searching­ Entering the Mainstream, 1920-1945 (Baltimore, I 992), especially pp. 220-224 on Jewish Communism. In the I930s it was estimated that 35-40 per cent of the American Communist Party were Jews, as were 5000 of I 3,000 members of the Young Communist League (Feingold, p. 22 I). 47 Samuel Halperin, The Political World qf American .(ionism (originally New York, I96I; reprinted I985), p. 329. 48 Ibid., citing Zionist Organization of America's Thirry-EighthAnnual Report, p. g. 49 Halperin, op. cit. in Note 47 above, Table V, p. 327. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. There are no complete figures for I 93 7 or I 939· Shekel purchase was also available through Labour Zionist and Orthodox Zionist groups. The statistics for these groups were always reported in round numbers, indicating that they were probably inaccurate. For instance, membership in Poale ,(ion, the Labour Zionist group, was given as exactly 'sooo' in every year from I923 until I934 (ibid.). 33 W. D. RUBINSTEIN 53 David Ben-Gurion, The Zionist Organization and its Tasks', Zionist Review, London, April I936, pp. 3I-32. 54 On this subject see by lVIichael Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and West European Jewry Bifore the First World War (Chapel Hill, I995) and Western Jewry and the Zionist Prqject, T9T 4-'933 (Cambridge, I997). 55 Gideon Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology (Hanover, N. H., I995), p. I95· 56 Ibid., pp. s-I I. According to Shimoni's carefully-argued work, all strands of Zionism shared in this view. 57 Ibid., pp. 232-235. 58 Yaacob Shavot, Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement, 1925-1948 (London, Ig88), pp. 337-8. At other times, however, Ben-Gurion acknow­ ledged the need for Jewish 'capital' (as well as labour) to migrate to Palestine. 59 Cited in Schechtman, Fighter and Prophet, op. cit in Note 3 above, p. 34I. Using terms like the 'Fiihrer' to describe Jabotinsky, so shocking today, was I commonplace in much of the Zionist mainstream at that time. Those who ·t trace the origins of today's Israeli political bitterness back to the Yishuv ought to be aware that much of this inflammatory language was introduced by the Zionist left against the right, not the other way around. 60 Norman Rose, Chaim Weizmann: A Biography (New York; I g88), pp. 23 I, 290. 61 See, for instance, Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology, op. cit., in Note 55 above, pp. 260-262, who states that the goal of a 'national home' remained the movement's official one as late as the Zionist Congress of'late I946' (p. 26I ). 62 Ibid., p. 262. 63 In Britain, the I 937 proposals for a Jewish mini-state were opposed by the Revisionists, Mizrachi (Religious Zionists), Chief Rabbi Dr. Joseph Hertz, the Jewish Chronicle newspaper, and the Zionist Review. It was reluctantly supported by Weizmann and by Professor Selig Brodetsky, soon to become President of the Board of Deputies ofBritishjews. Jabotinsky was a particularly vehement opponent of the proposed mini-state, launching a 'crusade' against the proposal (Schechtman, Fighter and Prophet, pp. 3 I 2-333). 64 Halperin, op. cit. in Note 47 above, pp. I I9-I20. One prominent American 'non-Zionist' member of the Jewish Agency, Maurice J. Karpf, stated that 'they did not expect that within their lifetime the Jewish state would be a problem for consideration ... Now that a Jewish state is actually proposed, and may almost be had for the taking, they suddenly find themselves forced to face a problem they did not envisage; and they are frank to say they will not accept a :Jewish State' (ibid., p. I I g). 65 Schechtman, Fighter and Prophet, op. cit in Note 3 above, p. 248. Ben­ Gurion nevertheless had 'a sneaking admiration' for Jabotinsky (ibid.). In I952, at the time of the serious civil unrest in Israel engendered by the possibility of West German reparations to Israel for the Holocaust, Ben­ Gurion famously referred to Menachem Begin (who was adamantly opposed to the accepting of reparations) as a 'fascist'. 66 lbid.,p. I85. 67 According to Schechtman, a 'broad anti-Revisionist coalition was formed' among Zionist groups which 'called for the wholesale outlawing of the entire Jabotinsky movement' (ibid.). This occurred before anyone was convicted of the murder, and actually ignored the fact that two Arabs

34 ZIONISM: Igi8-Ig6o actually confessed to the murder 'but were not believed, and were induced to withdraw their confessions'(!) (ibid). 68 Ibid., p. 202. 69 Ibid., p. 190. 70 Ibid. In other words, the antisemitic Polish government provided a Polish bodyguard to protectJabotinsky from murderous attacks by Jews. 71 Betar is the Revisionist youth group. A Polish-born Jew with whom I discussed these bitter disputes recalled that, when visiting Poland in the I 930s, Ben-Gurion received much the same treatment from Revisionists. Mendelsohn notes: 'In the 1930s fundraisers working for Keren Hayesod (the Jewish National Fund, which raised funds for the Yishuv] were beaten up by Revisionist sympathisers, and when Ben-Gurion visited Poland in 1933, he had to be protected by scores of bodyguards'. See :Jewish Politics in Interwar Poland: An Overview', in Gutman, Mendelsohn et al., Jews qf Poland, op. cit. in Note 36 above, p. 15. 72 Mendelsohn, ibid., p. 13. 73 An interesting question is how many European Jews would have emigrated to Palestine before 1939, had an independent Jewish State existed. Plainly, this is unanswerable, but Ezra Mendelsohn has suggested, based upon great shrewdness and erudition, that 'instead of 14o,ooo Polish olim during the entire period [ 1930-39], there would perhaps have been half a million who went to Palestine' ('Zionist Success and Zionist Failure', op.cit. in Note 26 above, p. 187). Add to this perhaps another 1oo,ooo from other parts of Europe, and one arrives at a rough estimate of 46o,ooo additional Jews who would probably have migrated to Palestine before the Second World War. This would still have left more than five million Jews in what would soon be Nazi-occupied Europe, apart from the 3.2 million Jews of the Soviet Union. 74 International Jewish Press Service, 12 May 1942, as cited in Halperin, op. cit. in Note 47 above, p. 222. 75 Ibid. 76 William D. Rubinstein, The Myth qf Rescue, op. cit. in Note 17 above, p. 86. 77 Halperin, op. cit. in Note 47 above, p. 222. The 'United Nations' was the official term for the anti-fascist wartime coalition, not the international body founded in San Francisco in 1945. See also Feingold, op. cit. in Note 46 above, pp. 244-245. 78 Rubinstein, The Myth qf Rescue, op. cit. in Note 17 above, pp. 97-98. Demands for a :Jewish army' were quietly dropped, or placed on the backburner, after about mid-1943 (ibid., p. 112). 79 Halperin, op. cit. in Note 47 above, pp. 253-80. See also Monty Noam Penkower, The Holocaust and Israel Reborn: From Catastrophe to Sovereignty (Urbana, Ill., 1994), although Penkower ascribes too much to the Revisionists. 80 Zionists had had much less luck with President Roosevelt in the closing stages of the war, and it is arguable whether the events of 1947-48 would have occurred had he lived (Feingold, op. cit. in Note 46 above, pp. 247- 249). 35 \V. D. RUBINSTEIN 81 Halperin, op. cit. in Note 47 above, pp. 28I-295· Recent studies of anti­ Zionistjewish groups which existed throughout the English-speaking world include Laurel Leff, 'A Tragic 'Fight in the Family': 77ze New York Times, Reform Judaism and the Holocaust', American Jewish History, vol. 88(I), March 2ooo; Thomas A. Kolsky, Jews Against Zionism: The American Council for Judaism, 1942-48 (Philadelphia, I990); and Rory Miller, 'A Most Uncivil War: The Jewish Fellowship and the Battle Over Zionism in Anglo:J ewry', 1heJewishJoumalofSociology, vol. XLII (nos. I and 2), 2000. 82 Rubinstein, Jews in the English-Speaking World, op. cit. in Note 40 above, pp. 255-256. 83 Events are seldom as clear-cut as this, and it must be recalled that Brodetsky was a Senior Wrangler at Cambridge (and owed his original fame to this fact) and that for many years committed Zionist families like the Marks and the Sieffs had been among the community's power brokers. 84 W. D. Rubinstein, 'The Revolution of I942-44', Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Sociery, vol. I I, no. I, I 990. 85 The fact that there were fewer (or no) rigid ideologically-based parties among Jews of the 'New Diaspora', especially in the United States, probably made much easier the great growth in support for Zionism after I 939· 86 Edward S. Shapiro, A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II (Baltimore, I 992 ), p. 201. 87 As late as I 953 Neville Laski, the former head of the Board of Deputies, wrote to the Jewish Chronicle newspaper suggesting that there was no overriding loyalty, by British Jews, to Israel as opposed to Britain, and that British citizenship was not 'an umbrella you can open or close at will' (cited in the obituary ofNeville Laski, Jewish Chronicle, 28 March I96g). CONFLICT, ADJUSTMENT, AND COMPROMISE: THE CASE OF A YEMENITE MOSHAV Rachel Sharaby

Introduction MMIGRATION from Yemen to Palestine increased in the early twentieth century. The Yemenites came to Palestine to escape I economic and political discrimination. They were influenced particularly by Jewish delegates who came to Yemen on behalf of the Zionist Federation (notably Shmucl Yavni'eli in 191 1), religious feelings about the Holy Land, and by news of the Balfour Declaration of1917. 1 The first wave of immigrants (1881-1904) came from the capital, Sana'a, and its environs. The majority settled in cities, mainly Jerusalem and Jaffa2 However, most of the Yemenites in the second wave of immigration (1904-1914) came from rural areas in the north and south of Yemen. Some settled in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, and Jaffa, but most of them went to establish agricultural communities near towns, such as Rehovot, Rishon LeZion, Petah-Tikva, Hadera, and Zihron-Yaakov, where they worked as hired farm labourers, under poor conditions and for very low wages. 3 After the First World War, the flow of immigrants from various areas of Yemen continued. They settled in two major areas: the cities, especially in Tel-Aviv, where they worked as builders, and in neighbourhoods near the old and new agricultural settlements. By 1939, there were 28,ooo Yemenite immigrants; after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, there were 35,000 accounting for seven per cent of the Jewish population.• Despite the continuous increase in the number of Yemenite immigrants since the beginning of the century and their contribution to the establishment of the Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine, the Jewish Agency made no effort to establish an independent moshav for them. The leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine did not believe that the Yemcnites could become independent farmers and

The]ewish]oumal qf Sociology, vol. 43, nos. 1 and 2, 2001.

37 RACHEL SHARABY implement the socialist principles of the Yishuv. Rather, they viewed them as being on a par with Arab hired farm labourers, 5 and refused requests from the Yemenite leaders to establish an independent Yemenite agricultural settlement for them, as they did for groups from other countries of origin.6 The Yemenite representatives in the Histadrut (Labour Federation) were also disappointed by the treatment of their community, particu­ larly by their failure to obtain settlement rights for Yemenite immigrants. They eventually left the Histadrut in I923 and founded an independent organization, 'The Yemenite Federation in the Land of Israel' headed by Zecharia Gluska. The Federation dealt with immigration, settlement, work, education, cultural and social welfare issues, as well as representing their community in the Jewish Agency and in the Zionist Congress. 7 After a long struggle initiated by the leaders of the Yemenite Federation, the settlement authorities finally complied with their demands, and helped them to establish three settlements under the Moshav Ovdim framework: Marmorek (I 930 ), Tirat Shalom (I93I), and Elyashiv (I933) in the Hefer Valley (north of Tel-Aviv). Elyashiv was the only one of these which was not later turned into an urban neighbourhood. The so founding families of Elyashiv had come to Palestine in the I 920s and about so per cent of them settled in Petah-Tikva, while the others went to Rishon-le-Zion, Zichron-Yaakov, Hadera, and Tel-Aviv. The Elyashiv settlers were members of the 'Shabazi Organization', which was founded by the Yemenite Federation in Petah-Tikva in I 93 I, with the aim of establishing independent Yemenite agricultural settlements for immigrants. Avraham Tabib, the initiator and Vice­ President of the Yemenite Federation, was mainly preoccupied with settlement issues." Most settlement organizations sent their members who were interested in establishing Moshav Ovdim settlements to veteran Moshav farms in Palestine or abroad (before immigration), where they acquired agricultural training, social cohesion and instruc­ tion in Moshav ideology. 9 However, Shabazi members never went through such training, and were therefore unprepared for living conditions in the Moshav Ovdim. A Moshav Ovdim was an agricultural settlement which put into practice socialist Zionist ideals. In I 9 I 9 Eliezer Yaffe, the founder of Moshav Ovdim, first formulated a comprehensive theory of this type of settlement, integrating elements from the collective and the private settlements in a pamphlet entitled 'The Founding of Moshav Ovdim'. 10 The main social and economic principles on which the Moshav was based were: state-owned land, independent work, mixed farming and mutual help, with co-operative institutions for communal purchasing, marketing, and operation. The Moshav founders viewed implementation of these principles not only as a tool for the workers' 38 A YE;\IENITE MOSHAV personal fulfilment but also, and primarily, as an instrument of change in Jewish society as a whole. However, the Moshav Ovdim principles were not in keeping with the traditional social structure of the Yemenite immigrants who founded Moshav Elyashiv. This led to severe conflicts with the settlement authorities. This paper- which is based on a considerable amount of archival material, and on some interviews I conducted with moshav members in I 995 - deals with one of the main constituents of the Moshav Ovdim: the family farm. I also examine how the authorities adjusted to the traditional clan structure at Elyashiv. This model of immigration differs from those presented in other studies, carried out in the I 950s and the I 96os - for example, by 11 Eisenstadt and others - who seemed to consider Israel as a society into which the traditional groups had to assimilate in a unilateral cultural homogenization process. This paper, however, views cultural contact as a reciprocal process, in which all the interacting groups can change, and in which the absorbing society may also adjust to the traditional values of the immigrants.

Recognition rifYemenite Clan Relations A llnwing extended :family hnusehnlds The structure of the family unit among Yemenite immigrants greatly differed from that of the Moshav Ovdim. The basic unit of the latter was the nuclear family and inter-family relations were based on the ideology of creating a social and economic co-operative commun­ ity. By contrast, the Elyashiv Yemenites wanted to maintain the clan structure of their country of origin. 12 Kin relations among patriarchal clan units - a central feature of societies in Yemen and in other 13 countries - are characterized by close geographical proximity, a tight network of social relations, and family loyalty. The main aim of communal living was to preserve family assets. This social structure was also significant for promoting mutual help and economic and political commitments. The Elyashiv Yemenites were accustomed to a traditional social organization based on the family with extended kin relations and wished to preserve it. In several cases, brothers who had originally shared plots in other settlements, were given separate land allotments when they came to Elyashiv. 14 (The names given below are fictitious, in order to protect the privacy of the members and of their families.) Examples include the brothers Ezra and Yehuda Bushari, who came to Elyashiv from Rishon-le-Zion. Shalom Amusi from Petah-Tikva was accepted by the Moshav together with his two married sons, but did not come to Elyashiv; however, his son, Avraham, informally purchased the right to the land, together with his nephew Yosef Amusi, as well as later 39 RACHELSHARABY helping his nephew to acquire another plot of Moshav land that became vacant. 15 In another case, the Jewish Agency originally approved separate settlement rights for four brothers from the Uzeri family of Petah-Tikva, 16 and their candidacy for settlement on the Moshav. However, the Agency's representative, Matitiahu Cahanovitz, expressed concern about the social implications of this decision. In a report dated 26 November 1936, he wrote: 'I was told, at the general assembly a few days ago, that three of the brothers have already united, using their joint power against the public interest'." The Agency asked the Yemenite Federation, which was held respons­ ible since it had submitted the list of candidates for settlement in the Moshav, to look into the matter. 18 ButAvraham Tabib, Vice-President of the Federation, bounced the ball back into the Agency's court, pointing out: ' ... in the case of the Uzeri brothers and their settlement in Moshav Elyashiv, I told you about it when I submitted the list ... You have never before opposed the settlement of several brothers in the same Moshav. Generally, I think that the Uzeri brothers are good, quiet members ofElyashiv, open-minded, agile and industrious, and I 19 wish there were many more members like them in the settlement' • This exchange between Tabib (who clearly supported the family traditions of the Elyashiv Yemenites) and the Agency representative vividly reflects the conceptual differences between these parties about kinship relations. The Elyashiv members were determined to preserve the familial-clan relations and the values and the social structure of their land of origin. They were also used to close co-operation with their kin and probably wanted to preserve the familiar supportive background to help them to adjust to their new settlement. But the Jewish Agency objected, fearing that it would be detrimental to the social structure of Elyashiv as a Moshav Ovdim, and would hinder the Moshav's development as a modern co-operative settlement. It therefore attempted to limit the extent of kin settlement in Elyashiv but was probably aware that it would be unable to change or control the traditional family structure of the Yemenite settlers. Over the years, other close relatives joined the core settlers in Elyashiv. They lived with their relatives or others on the Moshav, as landless residents rather than as Moshav members, until plots became vacant. Some of them managed to retain the land of their relatives who had died or had left the settlement, and relatives helped one other to obtain land. For example, when Ezra Bushari (who was single) left Elyashiv in 1936, he gave his land and other investments to his nephew David Bushari, who was a resident of the Moshav with his household. 20 Yitzhak Melamed's land was passed on, after his death, to his brother Zecharia, who moved to the Moshav; 21 another brother, Moshe Melamed, who lived as a tenant of another settler,22 A YEMEN!TE MOSHAV was given another plot which had become vacant. That was how a kin structure was established in Elyashiv, reflecting the settlers' wish to preserve their traditional social structure and family patterns, which were unique in Palestine at the time. They did not identify ideo­ logically with the social structure and the principles of the Moshav Ovdim. In my estimation, about 50 per cent of the Elyashiv settlers lived in nuclear households and the other half in extended (hamula) family groups. The households of the founding group in Elyashiv were close to the 'modified nuclear family' model described by Yorburg,23 since they were autonomous, exerting only a weak influence on the extended family (living outside Elyashiv). The economic resources of the settlers were usually independent, but in emergencies, material assistance was sometimes given by the extended family. It would seem, therefore, that the extended family at Elyashiv was similar to the 'modified extended-family' model.24 The members of nuclear families were less dependent on one other, the families lived in geographical proximity, exchanged daily services, and lived under the influence of the extended family. Since the principle of nationally-owned land was the main basis of the Moshav Ovdim, the plot was not held freehold, but was leased to the settlers, so as to prevent speculative land transactions and to promote the socialist world-view in Moshav development. Thus, transfer of land was strictly forbidden without the consent of the settlement authorities who were the freeholders. 25 However, in practice, land in Elyashiv was often transferred to relatives from outside the Moshav without the approval of the settlement authorities. For example, Shimon Dori, who had relatives in Elyashiv, subleased some ofShlomo Hubara's land in contravention ofMoshav rules. 26 In 1942, Shimon Dori was given some ofYaakov Amrani's land when he left the Moshav. Dori asked the Keren Kayemet Le-Israel (K.K.L. - the settlement authority responsible for land) to register the land in the name of his brother Reuven, an Elyashiv resident, since they had both held equal shares of the lease.2' The K.K.L. told Shimon Dori unequivocally that Reuven 's name could not be added to the lease since '.. agricultural lanrl is considered one farming unit, capable of providing for one family, and is indivisible. A K.K.L. agricultural lease is signed and registered between the K.K.L. as one party and the settler and his spouse as the other. The settler and his spouse are considered as one farming unit, and bringing in a third party is not an option ... '. 28 In spite of the K.K.L. 's clear instructions, the brothers shared the allotment for several years, without the authorities' approval.29 Finally, the land was registered only in Reuven's name.30 The brothers had probably reached an agreement that Reuven would take over the land. 41 RACHELSHARABY The conflict between the parties arose from conceptual differences. The brothers, as in the other cases mentioned, settled on the land against the Moshav rules and against the instructions of the settlement authorities. According to Yemenite tradition, it was an acceptable norm for brothers to live together under one roof. The authorities, however, were not willing to overlook the principles of Moshav Ovdim, and viewed the brothers as law-breakers. It is also possible that they were trying to teach Elyashiv settlers, by socialization, the modern nuclear-family norms prevailing in the country. Moreover, in the Dori case, the Jewish Agency did not oppose the settlement of both brothers in the Moshav, but rather the division of one farming unit between them.

CoMPROMISE ovER THE UzERI FAMILY's PLoT OF LAND The Uzeri affair in I946-I947 was another prominent case of an illegal family land transfer, with which the authorities were forced to contend. The correspondence relating to this affair stretched over a 31 long period in the mid- I 930s; and there is much archival material , which is here summarized briefly. After the death ofYosefUzeri, who was allocated land but did not settle in Elyashiv, the Elyashiv Committee gave his widow Naomi and her children, against their wishes, an inferior plot, which belonged to Yizthak Maatuf; that was done without the authorities' approval. In February I 946, the K.K.L. instructed the Elyashiv Committee to make no further changes in land division until the authorities had looked into the matter. At the same time, the Jewish Agency threatened to repossess the plot which had been allocated to Yosef Uzeri unless his widow and children settled there within six months. However, Naomi Uzeri ignored the Agency's instructions and sold her land, without approval, to a new settler, David Mauda, who was living on his brother's plot in Elyashiv. The Jewish Agency then instructed the K.K.L. ... 'not to transfer ... plots in Moshav Elyashiv, without our explicit recommendation, because we suspect that some people recently "sold their settling rights" 32 against our wishes'. In February I 94 7, the Elyashiv leaders declared that all land transactions required the consent of the authorities. They also asked for approval to replace Naomi Uzeri, as a Moshav member, by David Mauda (who was the chairman's brother-in-law). According to the rules, new members accepted by the Moshav Committee had to apply to the Jewish Agency and the K.K.L. to obtain a final approval to register land in their names. To ensure the financial and social success of the settlers and the Moshav, the authorities approved only applicants who were married, had children, and lpd been living in Palestine for at least two years. They also had 42 A YEMENITE MOSHAV to have experience in agricultural work, not to own property outside the Moshav, and not to be involved in land speculation.33 The Agency rejected David Mauda as a Moshav member at Elyashiv, because accepting him would have involved speculation on K.K.L. land. The Agency also threatened that if the Elyashiv Committee's action was not reversed within r o days, the widow's leasing rights would be annulled. At the same time, the Agency approved the exchange ofUzeri's orchard plot for Yitzhak Maatuf's inferior one. When the Elyashiv Committee failed to respond, the Agency referred the matter to the K.K.L., which informed the widow of the annulment of her lease on 27 Aprilrg4j. However, the Elyashiv Committee continued to ignore the Agency's instructions and the K.K.L.'s decision and appeals. In May 194 7, The Elyashiv Committee informed the Emek Hefer regional council that David Mauda had been accepted as a Moshav member, replacing Naomi Uzeri, and requested a building permit. The K.K.L. decided to take strong disciplinary action to prevent further land speculation supported by the Elyashiv Committee, informing the Committee of its intention to sue Naomi Uzeri. The K.K.L. also instructed the Emek Hefer Council not to grant a building permit on the Uzeri plot. The Council agreed to co-operate with the K.K.L. David Mauda decided to present the authorities with a fait accompli, and started digging building foundations without approval. Yitzhak Maatuf, who was given Uzeri's orchard plot, urged the K.K.L. to stop the building process. Three out of seven Elyashiv Committee members, concerned over the authorities' sanctions, expressed their opposition to the illegal action on the U zeri land. The Agency did not rush to take legal sanctions against Naomi Uzeri, preferring to appeal to her again. It also offered help to the Elyashiv Committee to establish an arbitration committee, whose verdict would be enforceable on all parties, but the Elyashiv Committee refused the arbitration offer, even when the Agency renewed its appeal in September 194 7. The Agency then threatened legal action to repossess the land. It should be pointed out that the Agency had tried to negotiate an arbitration agreement with the Elyashiv Committee without consulting the K.K.L., in the belief that the K.K.L. would oppose the compromise. 34 The Agency did not want to institute legal proceedings, preferring to solve problems by compromise and agreement. In October 1947, Naomi Uzeri requested a postponement of the trial date. She pointed out that she was in poor health, and that even if the K.K.L. won the case, she would probably not implement the verdict, since she had no funds. It is probable that the illegal sale ofK.K.L. land was accepted as a norm at Elyashiv. 43 RACHEL SHARABY To prevent future breaches of the law, the K.K.L. did not give in to the widow, but persevered with the lawsuit. The police regional officer issued an order to stop the building work on the Uzeri plot but David Mauda, supported by the Elyashiv Committee's chairman, disobeyed the order. As the trial approached, tension rose between the authorities and the Elyashiv Committee chairman and his supporters. When the Emek Hefer Council representative came to stop the building work, Elyashiv members swore at him and threatened him. Only police intervention brought work on the site to a halt. These events convinced the K.K.L. that it should not give in to the defendants, since the affair was known in the area, and could set a dangerous precedent for speculation over K.K.L. land. 35 Opposition by the Elyashiv Committee confirmed the K.K.L.'s assertion that if the authorities had not stood firm on this matter, lawlessness would have prevailed. 36 The trial took place in the absence of the defendants on 24 October 1947. The court ordered the annulment of Naomi Uzeri's lease, and payment of damages by the defendants." However, the Jewish Agency did not hurry to enforce the order, but negotiated for arbitration. In November 1947, the Elyashiv Committee chairman and his colleagues told the Agency that they would agree to arbitration. They also used several arguments to persuade the Agency to allow David Mauda to remain on the Uzeri land, in spite of the verdict. They pointed out, among other things, that the affair had caused a deterioration in Naomi Uzeri's health and had made them less willing to compensate Yitzhak Maatuf financially. They were supported by the Yemenite Federation. 38 The K.K.L. agreed to arbitration, 39 reversing its position probably because it understood that this problem would not be easily solved through the courts, but by an agreement between the parties. The arbitration took place finally on 25 November 1947. Shimon Makler, the arbitrator approved by both parties, reprimanded the members of the Elyashiv Committee in his closing arguments, for their illegal actions concerning the land. He fined the Committee six Palestinian pounds, and stipulated that they must not accept any new settlers without the consent of the settlement authorities. He also ordered the transfer of the Uzeri land to David Mauda, who was asked to compensate Yitzhak Maatuf for his losses by payment of the substantial sum of 1 7 5 Palestinian pounds. After these stipulations were carried out, the K.K.L. signed a lease granting the Uzeri land to David Mauda. Later Makler sent the Agency and the K.K.L. a detailed letter, in which he gave the reasons for his decision 40 He said that he had decided on a compromise mainly because he was convinced that if the K.K.L. had stood firm, two families would have been destroyed and the Moshav divided. 44 A YEMENITE MOSHAV The Jewish Agency Agreement to Allow Sons to Live Near Their Parents Status rif sons who do not inherit the family farming unit In the I 94os, the traditional structure of Yemenite society at Elyashiv led to a problem with households with more than one adult son. According to the Moshav Ovdim rules, only the settler and his wife and children were allowed to do the farm work. Moshav members were forbidden to hire help or hire themselves out to other landowners. According to socialist ideals, the settler's connection to the land, which was vital for establishing a new Jewish society in the land of Israel, would be strengthened in this way. Therefore, Moshav farms were planned to suit the needs of a nuclear family of about five members, a household size which was typical of modern Yishuv society. On the basis of such a family unit, Eliezer Yaffe- the Moshav Ovdim visionary - planned the Moshav services and institutions as well as the annual food consumption and the amount oflivestock. The plot allocated was sufficient only for the needs of a nuclear­ family unit, without any room for expansion. The lease signed by the settlers and the K.K.L. forbade division of the land.41 The problem of the married children who did not inherit the parental plot and could not establish independent farms generally troubled the members of the Moshav Ovdim. Many of the sons left to join other settlements, or settlement organizations.'2 However, such a solution did not suit the traditional social structure of Jews originating from Yemen, where the marriage of one son did not usually lead to any economic and social changes. The new couple was not encouraged to be autonomous, but would be given one room, and later a wing, in the parental house, and would be taken into the family business. The patriarchal family structure was based on close co-operation between the father and his married sons in a joint household. Even after the father's death, the brothers usually con­ tinued to live together under the leadership of the eldest son, who assumed the father's authority.43 In Elyashiv, the younger generation and their parents tended to continue to follow the Yemenite extended­ family tradition. In an interview in I 995, a young couple (Avraham and Ziona) told me: ' ... After marriage, we lived in one room with his parents for four years. Vl/e did not want to leave the Moshav'. Ziona added: 'A friend offered Avraham some land and an orchard in Rishon-Le-Zion, but he did not want to leave his parents. All the married couples lived with the parents. Later, some of them left. Some people tacitly and informally divided the parents' land and built on it. [But) as far as the Moshav Committee was concerned, there was only one land unit.' The Elyashiv Yemenites refused to accept the Moshav Ovdim family norms, which they thought would destroy their traditional 45 RACHELSHARABY kinship structure. They tried many ways, both legal and illegal, to deal with the problem of sons who did not inherit the family farming unit. Against this background, there was fierce fighting between members over any Moshav plot which became vacant.44 Some ., Moshav members tried to acquire land for their adult sons to secure I their future. This issue was important not only for the family, but also for the power distribution in the Moshav. Fierce K.K.L. opposition to giving plots of land to the sons of settlers stemmed from the fear that some families would become too powerful in the Moshav.

The Flexibility of the Jewish Agency in the Shlomo Badihi Case One of the cases which caused much hostility in Moshav Elyashiv was the land transfer to Shlomo Badihi, whose father held an important position in the community. There is a long correspondence and much archival material about this case. 45 During the construction of the Haifa-Tel-Aviv road in 1937, Moshav land, including a plot belonging to Zion Meshulam, was redistributed and the Jewish Agency promised him some public Moshav land as compensation; but Se'adia Gibli, who had been given an inferior plot, demanded it for himself. Gibli also negotiated with the Moshav Committee: in January 1938, he was given part of Zion Meshulam's plot, after paying the Elyashiv Committee five Palestinian pounds. Later, the Committee decided to give Shlomo Badihi ownership of the entire plot, probably in return for a higher payment46 and because his father held an important position and was owed money from the Moshav for work he had carried out on the water system. 47 The Jewish Agency representatives instructed the Elyashiv Committee not to proceed with the land redistribution, until they cleared up the dispute between the settlers. However, the Committee ignored the Agency's instruction and gave the land to Shlomo Badihi, who started farming there to establish his ownership. The Elyashiv Committee even asked the Agency to approve him as a Moshav member, but their request was refused since the Agency regarded the land as a national resource to be used according to the founding principles of the settlement ideology. In March 1939, the Agency decided to give approximately 250 dunams to Se'adia Gibli and one­ and-a-half dunams to Zion Meshulam. But according to Gibli, the Elyashiv Committee did not implement this decision, while Badihi continued to plough the entire plot with the full approval of the Committee.48 Gibli felt helpless, since he was not supported by any party, and since the authorities were not resolute in their decision. The Elyashiv Committee persuaded Zion Meshulam to accept another plot, and the Jewish Agency agreed to a compromise to settle the dispute. The Elyashiv Committee was also willing to give Se'adia 46 A YEMENJTE MOSHAV Gibli part of the land, but he refused this offer. To force Gibli to give up the rest of the plot to Shlomo Badihi, the Elyashiv Committee shut off his water supply, ostensibly because he had not paid his taxes. Gibli claimed that the Committee even threatened that, if anybody gave him water, they would damage that person's water pipe. The Elyashiv Committee imposed severe water sanctions on members who failed to pay their taxes. 49 Gibli's appeals against the Elyashiv Committee went unanswered and the Jewish Agency supported the Elyashiv Committee by not reacting. The Agency representatives even expressed the view that Gibli's claims were unjustified. Realizing that the Agency was firm in its stand to allocate him only a portion of the plot, Gibli gave in and accepted the compromise.50 There was another development in June 1939· The Jewish Agency reported that Elyashiv Committee members, taking advantage of the chairman's absence, had voted to give Gibli's portion of the plot to Shlomo Badihi. Some Elyashiv Committee members supported returning the land to Gibli, and appealed to the Agency for help. The Committee's majority faction also approached the Agency, asking for approval to allocate the entire plot to Shlomo Badihi. However, the Agency refused to do this, and started the process of dividing the land between Shlomo Badihi and Se'adia Gibli. The latter claimed that after the Agency representatives marked out the land and left the Moshav, the Badihi family members removed the markers and threatened him physically. The Moshav leaders informed the Agency that a decision had been made at the general assembly of Moshav members, which took place on 24 June 1939, to give the land to Shlomo Badihi, and to compensate Gibli with an alternative plot. This decision shows how the Moshav leaders yielded to the Badihi family, which was financially well established and powerful in Elyashiv. Se'adia Gibli refused to accept the general assembly's decision; he asked the Agency to speed up matters and give him his portion of the land, as previously agreed. The Agency granted his request and rejected the general assembly's decision; it stressed that the real landowners of the Moshav Ovdim were the national institutions, not the Elyashiv Committee's members. That stand about Moshav Ovdim's principles was most important, especially in view of the Elyashiv Committee's occasional support of illegal annexation of Moshav land51 The Elyashiv leaders finally accepted the Jewish Agency's decision in the Shlomo Badihi affair, probably realizing that the Agency would stand firm and not allow the settlers to dictate activities on national land. The plot was finally divided and Se'adia Gibli obtained his share. However, Shlomo Badihi refused to accept the division in spite of numerous appeals and warnings by the Elyashiv Committee. The 47 RACHELSHARABY Agency therefore decided to cancel his Moshav membership, and remove his name from the land registry. Shlomo Badihi finally accepted the land division, established another farm, further increas­ ing the Badihi family's power. After he died, his brother Yosef Badihi was accepted by the Moshav as a member in his place and given his land. 52

Conclusion In the power struggle between Elyashiv and the Jewish Agency, the K.K.L. eventually compromised, with official and unofficial institu­ tional adjustments. 53 The formal organizations redefined roles and took on new roles allowing them to adapt to new conditions. Many Jewish Agency and K.K.L. documents dealing with other, non­ Yemenite, Moshav Ovdim settlements in Emek Hefer,54 indicate that they did not experience problems similar to those in Elyashiv. This is probably because the ideological flexibility in familial structure in other settlements was better suited to Moshav Ovdim principles. The lenient behaviour of the authorities in Elyashiv is likely to have stemmed from the peculiar status of the Jewish Agency leadership during the British Mandate years. British rule gave legal status to the political leadership as well as to the different settlement groups in the country, leading to the development of a 'partial society', as opposed to a 'whole society'. 55 This was characterized by voluntarism and the mutual dependency of different components. Without a sovereign force and national ownership as guidelines, the political centre adopted a policy of tolerance and co-operation between the sub­ groups of the settlers' society, in order to achieve institutional legitimacy and political influence.56 This policy was also reflected in the treatment of the Elyashiv settlers by the Jewish Agency. Conflicts were avoided and compromises made with the aims of reinforcing the Agency's political influence on the Elyashiv settlers and of dissociating them from the Yemenite Federation, which supported right-wing factions." Adjustments had to be made for Elyashiv's unique circumstances, otherwise there would have been a risk of serious disruption and consequent loss of all the resources invested there. Nevertheless, perhaps the flexible policy of the Jewish Agency stemmed not only from political and economic interests, but also from acceptance of the fact that the Elyashiv settlers could not be forced to change their traditional kinship patterns to conform with socialist ideology. Accordingly, adjustment and compromise prevailed during dealings with Moshav Elyashiv. l A YE~·!ENITE ~IOSHAV Acknowledgement The preparation of this article was sponsored by the Schnitzer Foundation for Research on the Israeli Economy and Society.

NOTES Abbreviations C.Z.A.- Central Zionist Archives. K.K.L.- Keren Kayemet Le-Israel 1 On the reasons for immigrating at the beginning of the twentieth century, see Yehuda Ratzabi, Yahadut Teiman, Matkal, Tel-Aviv, I 978; Dov Levitan, A!yat A1arvad Haksamim KJwmsheh Histmi LaAiiyot MeTeiman Afeaz Tarmab, Master's Degree thesis, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Ig8g, pp. so-s2, 89-91; and Moshe Tzadok, Yehudei Teiman, Am Oved, Tel-Aviv, 1983, pp. 226-62. 2 On the immigrants who came in the first immigration wave see details in: Nitza Droyan, Be-Ein Marvad Ksamim, Olei Teiman Be-Eretz Israel, Yad Ben Tzvi Institute, Jerusalem, 1982, pp. r r-93; and Yehuda Nini, Teiman Ve,(ion, the Zionist Library, Jerusalem, r 982, pp. r 79-2 r 8, 2 I 7-37. 3 On the second immigration wave from Yemen, see Percy Cohen, ~\lignments and Allegiances in the Community of Shaarayim in Israel' 17w Jewish Journal cif Sociology, 1962, vol. 4, no. r, pp. 14-38; Nitza Droyan, op. cit. in Note 2 above, pp. 93-156; and Yehuda Nini, op. cit. in Note 2 above, pp. 2 r8-36, 279-87. 4 See Raziel Mamat, HaGeographia HaYishuvit she! HaTeimanim Beisrael, Master's Degree Thesis, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, r 98 r, pp. 66-73, charts 7, 8; and Dov Levitan, op. cit. in Note I above, pp. 8 I, 1 17. 5 See, for example, an essay written by Arthur Rupin, the Palestine administrator of the Zionist Federation who dealt with settlement: Arthur Rupin, HaYehudim Ba,(man Ha,(e, Odessa, I 9 I 4, pp. 205; and Arthur Rupin, Perkei Hayai, AmOved, Tel Aviv, r 968, p. 103. 6 On their demands, see for instance Hamitzpe (the Yemenite Federation Journal), July 1935; Avraham Tabib, Aliyat Yehudei Teiman LeEret;; Israel VeHityashvutam Ea, The Yemenite Federation Centre, Tel-Aviv, 1943, pp. 6-9; and Zecharia Gluska, LeMa'an Yehudei Teiman, self-published, Jerusalem, 1974, pp. to8-r3, 454· 7 On the establishment of the Federation and its activities see Hamit;;pe, July 1935; Shimon Grady, Merka;; Hitahadut HaTeimanim BeEretz-Israel, Merkaz Hitahadut HaTeimanim, Tel-Aviv, 1943, pp. 19-23; Tabib and Gluska, as in Note 6 above. 8 About the organization see Bustanai (The Farmers Federation Weekly in Palestine), 3rstJanuary 1931; Tabib, op. cit. in Note 6 above, pp. 30-31; and Glimpses cif Jewish Settlement History, Keren Hayesod, Jerusalem, I 945, p. 28. 9 See for instance, Aharon Gretz, Emek-Hefer - To/dot ve-Sikumim. Kfar Vitkin, Emek Hefer Regional Centre, 1957, pp. 134-35, 153, 171; and Menahem Rotshtein, Moshav Haoudim Hadati She! Hapoel Hamizrahi, Master's Degree Thesis, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 1985, pp. 138-39. 49 RACHELSHARABY 10 Eliezer Yaffe, Yisud Moshav Ovdim. Havaad Hamerkazi she! Mifteget Hapoel Hatsair,Jaffa, I9I9. 11 For instance: by Samuel Eisenstadt, The Absorption of Immigrants, Routledge, London, I9S4, pp. 90-I04 and Ha-Khevra ha-Israelit, Magnes, Jerusalem, I973· See also Moshe Lissak and Ovadia Shapira, Mehkarim be­ Sotziologia, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, I9s6; Ovadia Shapira, ed., Moshvei Olim be-Israel, Ha-Makhlaka le-Hityyashvut she! ha-Sokhnut ha­ Yehudit, Jerusalem, I972; and Joseph Ben-David, ed., Agricultural Planning and Village Community in Israel, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, I964, pp. 96-Ior. 12 Shlomo Goitein, 'Portrait of a Yemenite Weavers Village', Jewish Social Studies, I9SS, vol. I7: pp. 3-26; Levitan, op. cit. in Note I above, pp. 27, 344; and Hayyim Gamliel, 'Shinui ve-Hemshekhiut be-Yakhasei ha­ Mishpaha Etzel ha-Yehudim Yotzei Teiman be-lsrael' in Shalom Gamliel et al., eds., Orkhot Teiman, Mahon Shalom, Jerusalem, I984, pp. I88-20I, I90-91. 13 Betty Yorburg, 'The Nuclear and the Extended Family', Journal of Comparative Family Studies, vol. 6, I97S, pp. 5-I4; Eugene Litwak, 'Occupational Mobility and Extended Family Cohesion', American Sociological Review, vol. 2S, I96o, pp. 9-2I; Moshe Shokeid, 'Ha-Omnam Khamulot? Sioot Mishpahtiot u-Politiot be-Tahalikh ha-Histaglut la-Moshav' in lvloshe Shokeid, and Shlomo Deshen, Dor ha- Tmura, Mahon Yad Ben Zvi, Jerusalem, I977, pp. I38-IS2; and Nisan Rubin,. 'Le-Mashmauto ha­ Khevratit she! ha-Bkhor ba-lvlikra', Beit Mikra, I g88, pp. I I 3, ISS-70- 14 For the approval of their settlement by the Jewish Agency, see Central Zionist Archives (C.Z.A.) sI si 203S· 15 See Avraham Amusi's letter to the Agency in I3. 1.44 C.Z.A.: K.K.L.sl I 33 I 9· 16 c.z.A.: sI si 2o3s. 17 C.Z.A.:Sisl2o4o-26.Ir.36 18 C.Z.A.: Sisho3s; K.K.L.sl688g. 19 C.Z.A.: Sisho4o- I7.I2.36. 2° C.Z.A.: SISI204S· 21 C.Z.A.: K.K.L.sl 14837· "C.Z.A.: Sisl3042. 23 Yorburg, op. cit. in Note I 3 above. 24 For instance, Mazal and Shlomo Zehavi - who had not received funds - had to take loans from relatives outside the moshav, in order to build their house. See C.Z.A.: Sisl3042, April I939, K.K.L. si '4837 December I 946. On the loans which members received from family sources, see also the Agency's report of I94r: C.Z.A.: Ss3l827. Yona Tze'iri told me during an interview in I 99S that she had been receiving flour from her mother and mother-in-law in Tel-Aviv, and also funds from her family. "C.Z.A Sisho4s, K.K.L. sii6447; Eliezer Yaffe, op. cit. in Note Io above, pp. 6, I I, Is, 30; and Shmuel Dayan, Moshavei Ovdim Be-Eretz Israel, Reuven Mass, Jerusalem, I94S· 26 C.Z.A. Sisl2039· 27 C.Z.A.: K.K.L.slrn64- I7.7-42. so A YEMENJTE MOSHAV 28 C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/I2264 - 22.Io.42. " c.z.A.: K.K.L.5; I4837- 27. I .46. 30 See K.K.L. documents dated 3+46, C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/ 14837. 3 I Regarding the affair, see C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/I4837, K.K.L.5/I6457; Emek Hefer Archive 485/ 4350; and the Labour Party Archive IV- 235-I-I926. 32 C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/I4837- I4.2.47· 33 On the registration of applicants for membership in the Moshav, and on the settlers' acceptance criteria, see C.Z.A sI 512035, sI 512046, sI s/ 3042, K.K.L.s!I33I9, K.K.L.5/9882. See also Dayan, op. cit. in Note 25 above, p. I I; and Ami Asaf, Moshvei ha-Ovadim be-Israel, Ayyanot and Tnu'at ha­ Moshavim, Tel-Aviv, I954, p. 54· 34 Indeed, when the K.K.L., the authority responsible for land and settlement, found out about the arbitration, it opposed the compromise: see C.Z.A.: K.K.L.s/ I6457- 25. I0-47· 35 On their appeal, see C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/ I6457- I6. I0.47· 36 For the letters of the opposition members, see C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/ I 6457- I2.I0.47, I8.I0.47· 37 For the verdict see C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/ I6457· 38 C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/I3.I 1.47. 39 See the K.K.L.'s notice to the Agency's representatives and the Elyashiv Committee, C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5!I6457- IO.I 1.47. 4° For his letter, see C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5!I6457- 27.I 1.47. 4 I C.Z.A. K.K.L.s!I2264- 22.I0.42. 42 See Asaf, op. cit. in Note 33 above, pp. 92-95; Yaakov Uri, Darkenu, Tel­ Aviv, Tnuat ha-Moshavim, I946, pp. 30-36; and Tlamim (the moshav movement newsletter), September-October I945, pp. 36-37. 43 Sec Gamliel, op. cit. in Note I 2 above, pp. I90-9I andYehuda Ratzabi,. Be-IHaagalot Teiman, self-published, Tel-Aviv, I 988, p. 243· 44 See for example, C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/I33I9, K.K.L.5/6889; Emek Hefer Archive 485/ 4349· 45 On the affair, see C.Z.A.: SI5i2040, SI5/204I, SI5/2039, SI5/3042, K.K.L.5/ I4837, K.K.L.5/9882. 46 See the Agency's representative report C.Z.A.: sI s/ 3042- IO. I ·38. 47 See Emek Hefer Archive 485/4349- 6July I943· 48 c.Z.A.: sI si 3042- I 4·3·39· 49 See Emek Hefer Archive 485/4350. 50 See Se'adia Gibli's declaration dated I 2.6.39, C.Z.A.: sI 5/3042. 51 See, for instance, C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/6889 - 22.5.35, 7·3·45; C.Z.A.: K.K.L.51 I 33 I9 - 23. I2-43. 52 See the appeal of the Moshav secretary to the Agency - on 26.3-46, C.Z.A.: K.K.L.5/ I4837. 53 For \Veingrod's definition and its expression in the social reality of the immigrants to Israel in the 1950s, see Alcx VVeingrod,. Reluctant Pioneers, Washington, New York, and London, I 966, pp. I 59-66. Weingrod described a situation in which the goals and consequences of the 'institutional adjustment' served to strengthen the elite and to enforce norms on the immigrants. 5I RACHEL SHARABY 54 See for instance, C.Z.A.: S53/826, K.K.L.5/8463, K.K.L.5/rorrg, K.K.L.5/1355I (Kefar Haim), Sr5/9043, Ss3/828, K.K.L.5/rr470, K.K.L.5/ 13546 (Kefar Haro'e), S53/834, K.K.L.5/ 12437, K.K.L.5/ 13547, K.K.L.5/845 7 (Kefar Vitkin). 55 See Eisenstadt, 1973, op. cit. in Note !I above, pp. 38, 5I; and Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak,. Mi- Yishuv le-Medina, AmOved, Tel-Aviv, rg77, p. rg. 56 Horowitz and Lissak, op. cit. in Note 55 above, pp. 47-88. 57 See Levitan, op. cit. in Note 1 above, pp. 61, IOI-I02. I J

FIELDWORK AMONG HASSIDIC JEWS: MORAL CHALLENGES AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES William Shaffir

I HOUGH not deliberately pointing to the social and emotional dimensions of scientific research, Robert l'vlerton observed T that while sociology contains an enormous literature on the subject of research methods, it is primarily concerned with how social scientists ought to think, feel, and act and fails to attend adequately to what they actually think and feel. 1 The charge, endorsed also by others, is that accounts of research methods are largely sanitized, avoiding areas of activity and personal relations which could result in unfavourable controversy. While this charge pertains to all methods of research, it is seemingly more relevant to field research,' notably participant observation, whose methods of data collection, critics claim, are seemingly less rigid and precise- thereby not only inviting possibilities of researcher bias but undermining the validity of the research itself. 3 Though a limitation for some, the inexactness of field research methods is an advantage for others, enabling researchers to exercise their sociological imagination and to pursue creative avenues of data collection which might otherwise remain untried. This strength is, perhaps, more apt to be enjoyed by seasoned researchers who, in careers that are relatively secure, are in a more advantageous position to pursue less tried and more daring means of data collection; it is also likely for such measures to be employed towards the end of the research when any unfortunate consequences of their inclusion would impact less harshly on the project's completion.• The very fact that field research methods are less than dogmatic invites reflection and review concerning what might have been done differently to achieve better results. While this might pertain to a single project extending over a year, or two, or three, it is magnified immeasurably when the research has remained a priority over many

17w]ewish]oumal ofSociologv, vol. 4-3, nos. 1 and 2, 2001. 53 \VILLIAM SHAFFIR years or even decades. 5 In my particular case, I have studied hassidic Jews mainly in Montreal, but also elsewhere over a period of three decades. In this paper, I describe some of my earliest experiences in the field, notably an exchange of goods for the opportunity to interview a respondent and the use of covert research to gain access to a community setting. The passage of time as well as my on-going research among selected segments of Montreal's hassidic sects provide opportunities for reflecting on some of my accomplishments and failures. In what follows, I present two specific situations from my research while a graduate student. Both were fascinating and exciting but also unnerving. I consider how they unfolded, and, with hindsight, the appropriateness of my response. I also comment on two substant­ ive topics related to the research which I failed to pursue adequately. I conclude by suggesting what may now be obvious: my interpretation of the situational constraints shaped my research career route among the hassidim and defined what I considered, at the time, to be reasonable research practices. Moments before the start of my doctoral defence, I was told, informally, that a faculty member who would be attending as a representative of the University's Faculty of Arts objected to a sentence in the methodology chapter which read: 'Ethical considerations are a luxury that graduate students cannot always afford'. At the time of writing, I was seriously concerned about some of the ethically compromising situations in which I had participated. Familiar as I was with some of the relevant sociological literature of the day on ethics, 6 I did not mean to imply that such matters were unimportant or inconsequential, but simply that I, as a graduate student immersed in a setting to which entree was particularly problematic and challenging, could not afford the time and energy required to adhere to some less-than-clear ethical standards in the discipline. However, wishing for the oral examination to end without dire consequences, I agreed to delete the questionable sentence.

Background Origins ofthe Research My decision to study hassidic Jews was entirely fortuitous. I had l already informally begun an ethnography of a downtown pool hall when it became increasingly clear that my choice of topic was less than enthusiastically approved by my family. I would have survived the criticism, but when my eventual thesis advisor, Malcolm Spector, suggested that the hassidim would make for an interesting study, I did not hesitate. I had grown up in Montreal but was not acquainted with the hassidim. I knew where they lived and later discovered that I felt more at home in the pool hall than I did in their yeshivot. In fact, I felt 54 FIELDWORK AMONG HASSIDIC JEWS extremely awkward in their presence. I was unfamiliar with their synagogue ritual and practice and with the details of their prayer service- what and when to recite, and when to stand or sit. Yet, in a fascinatingly strange way, I looked forward to visiting their shteeblech (plural of shteebl, a moderately-sized hassidic house of prayer) and yeshivot and spending time among them. I had a traditional upbringing in a family deeply committed to Yiddish language and culture; my grandparents were observant Jews and my paternal grandfather was affiliated with the Vishnitzer hassidim. However, my less than observ­ ant and Zionist backgrounds magnified my outsider status, especially to myself, though this status gradually altered as a result of intensive and prolonged involvement with these ultra-Orthodox Jews. I began the research during the summer of tg68, about one month before entering the graduate programme in Sociology at McGill University. I was 22 years old at the time. A year later I completed a Master's thesis which offered an overview of Montreal's hassidic sects, followed three years later by a doctoral dissertation on the Lubavitch hassidic community. In 1972, I moved from Montreal to Hamilton, Ontario, to take up a teaching position at McMaster University. My involvements with hassidic Jews were most intense during my tenure as a graduate student and I have remained connected to individuals in these communities, and have researched them, to the present. My involvement today stems less from a professional need to publish about them than from the culmination of solid acquaintanceships and the personal joys and satisfactions I derive from connecting with, and at times even participating in, a social and religious world that is occasionally refreshing for its fundamental simplicity.

Montreal's Hassidim After New York, Montreal has the largest hassidic population in North America. While there are hassidim in Toronto and Lubavitcher are scattered across Canada, their numbers in any other Canadian cities pale by comparison to Montreal's. For a variety of reasons, the latter's hassidic population has increased substantially over the past 30 years. To a degree, at least, demographics are a consideration: hassidim have large families and this tendency has not diminished across successive generations.' Moreover, the institutional base estab­ lished by the hassidim in Montreal over the past decades - including, for example, schools, botai-midroshim (plural of bays-medresh, a place for prayer and study), shteeblech, mikvahs, and small-scale commercial establishments to meet religious needs - combined with the city's propinquity to New York, has energized the hassidic population and enhanced the attractiveness of the city for purposes of raising a family and leading a hassidic lifestyle. 55 WILLIAM SHAFFIR While seemingly uniform to uninitiated outsiders, the hassidim do not constitute one group but are divided into a number of distinctive sects. Although commonly committed to live in accordance with Orthodox Jewish law, the sects may differ in details of attitudes, customs, and beliefs as well as commitment to the teachings of their particular rebbe (charismatic religious leader). It is, therefore, only in a loose sense that the hassidim constitute one community. And while hassidic Jews are often portrayed as a picturesque reminder of yesteryear caught in a time warp, such a characterization distorts the dynamics of change which have recently gripped their institutions and their way oflife. Indeed if, initially, the social organization of hassidic institutions could effectively regulate the pace of change affecting their followers, the prospect of such complete control appears increasingly doubtful. Both the physical and social boundaries which sealed them from what they believed to be pernicious surrounding influences have become more porous, and the impact of social change has already exacted a toll. 8 Heilman correctly observes that' ... today's Hasidim are very much part of the modern world, struggling in a variety of ways against powerful social forces that threaten either to sweep them away or else transform them into something radically different from what their founders conceived or their leaders perceive'.9 Despite internal changes, outsiders, who are oblivious to them, must be impressed by the hassidim's staying power. Their garb has not been modified in response to fashion trends and their appearance, today, remains identical to that of their predecessors who settled in Montreal in the late I 940s and early-to-middle I 950s. The hassidim, in the main, live in the area they first inhabited upon settling in the city. There are exceptions: the Tasher sect relocated to a rural area (today, the municipality of Boisbriand) in the early I 96os, to establish an enclave; the Lubavitcher who, in the early I 96os, following the westerly movement ofJews in the city, relocated along a few blocks in the Snowdon district; and the Klausenburger who moved to the Wilderton area of the city. Montreal has followers of ten sects: Bobov, Belz, Klausenburg, Lubavitch, Munkatch, Pupa, Satmar, Square, Tash, and Vishnitz. The majority are comparatively small in number; the largest include Belz, Lubavitch, Satmar, and Tash. In I 990, I estimated the total of the ten sects to be about 4,000, representing an 10 increase of approximately 33 per cent over the previous I 5 years. However, according to a more recent survey of hassidim and ultra­ Orthodox Jews in Outremont and the Plateau region of the city, the area includes some 6,250 ultra-Orthodox Jews, of which about 5,ooo are believed to be hassidim. 11 Excluded from this survey are Lubavitcher, Klausenburger, and Tasher who could add some 3,ooo persons to the hassidic population. s6 FIELDWORK AMONG HASSIDIC JEWS The expansion of numbers of hassidic communities since the late I g6os, when I first began studying hassidim, has surely contributed to the success in staving off assimilative threats. However, the success has been accompanied by challenges, the effects of which have already alerted hassidic leaders to a range of situations and problems that may affect the sustainability of their communities in the years ahead. I will identify two situations briefly, each being symbolic of outside influ­ ences impinging upon the hassidim and their chosen way oflife. The first, labelled 'l'aifaire Outremont', began in the spring of I g88, with a request by hassidim to rezone a particular site from residential to commercial-institutional usage in order to allow the construction of a synagogue. 12 Although the Outremont City Council refused the application, Le Journal d'Outremont, a monthly paper, used the zoning matter as an opportunity to mount an anti-hassidic (some claimed antisemitic) campaign. A series of editorials and letters published by the paper appeared to reflect the attitudes of the local francophone population towards the hassidim. For example, on I 3 September I g88 (the first day of Rash Hashanah, the Jewish New Year) La Presse, a French daily newspaper, published a front-page article headlined 'Outremont se decouvre un "problcmc juif" ' (Outrcmont discovers it has a Jewish problem), evoking to many Jews the language of Nazi Germany. The article described the hassidim as a 'bizarre minority, with the men in black looking like bogeymen and the women and children dressed like onions'. It also referred to the high birth rate of hassidic families: 'Outremont is discovering its minority has children ... and with their families of often ten or more - they really make babies, these people- they'll keep taking up more space'. According to the article, Jews (hassidim) accounted for I I per cent of the area's population of about 23,000. The columnist Gerard Le blanc's articles on the subject in La Presse added fuel to the tensions. In one column, he blamed the massive integration of Jews into the city's anglophone minority for tensions between francophones and Jews, excluding the French-speaking SephardiJews. In another column, he wrote: :Jews are often found in the higher reaches of anglophone organizations like Alliance Quebec [an anglophone organization dedicated to defending English language rights for the province's minorities J and in some English media which did everything to make it difficult for francophones to ensure the survival and promotion of French society in North America'." He also claimed that Outremont's hassidim never spoke French when dealing with francophones in Outremont and concluded that they were a problem in the area. He stated: 'I don't like that these hassidim ... park in the middle of the street and refuse to move on, under the pretext that their religion forbids them to see me'. 14 The hostility aimed at the hassidim by residents in the area has now subsided but 57 WILLIAM SHAFFIR has not entirely disappeared. 15 It certainly served as a painful realization to hassidic leaders that their much sought-after tranquillity will, perhaps, be more difficult to sustain as their numbers in the area continue to increase, and as rent and property values do likewise in an area of the city experiencing gentrification. Perhaps an ever greater challenge facing the hassidim is indicated by the results of a recent survey commissioned by a hassidic ~ entrepreneur to assess the needs of the hassidic community in the Outremont area of Montreal; he was instrumental in establishing the Coalition of Outremont Hassidic Organizations (COHO) whose mandate would include lobbying different levels of government for various forms of assistance. According to him, for economic, social, and political reasons, it was time for the hassidim to become increasingly familiar with, and to take advantage of, economic and social resources and programmes for which hassidic-owned businesses and hassidicJews qualify. The assessment included a mailed question- naire to a sample of hassidic and ultra-Orthodox Jews along with a series of informal interviews, resulting in an extensive demographic profile of this Jewish community. The survey's results documented some unexpected findings and possibly disturbing trends and revealed a community whose resources were stretched to its limits in meeting both its financial and social needs. For example, I45 out of the 350 respondents, or 4 I ·4 per cent, live in households which are below the poverty line as calculated for I997 by Statistics Canada, and that 'financial difficulties' were noted by 30 per cent of the respondents. 16 While the survey cites general financial difficulties as a major source of uncertainty confronting the hassidic community, more particular problems are also identified - specifically, mental illness, marital discord, problems with parenting and child management, sibling rivalry, intimacy problems, violence and abuse. 17 While they seem to be hermetically sealed from the mainstream society, hassidic Jews readily admit (albeit at times reluctantly) that they are not immune from common social problems but have, till now, successfully minimized their impact on the hassidic lifestyle. Without exception, however, they concur that preserving their way of life is considerably more challenging at the century's turn than was the case some 30 years ago when I first began my research among them. My involvements with the hassidim at that time were mainly restricted to the Lubavitcher who were far more accessible than the other hassidic sects. However, my field notes indicate that I visited the Satmar hassidim as well and that after mustering up enough courage, I would venture inside their yeshiva. As for the Tash, following an initially unsuccessful attempt in December I 969 to be appointed by them as an English teacher, I became an employee of the community sB FIELDWORK A~IONG HASSIDIC JEWS several months later. During the first year, my adventures in the field did not include visits to any other sects. As I have written elsewhere, my initial visits to any hassidic institutions were tense and anxious moments despite the appearance of a calm and cool exterior. 18 With the exception of the Lubavitcher, the hassidim were not especially welcoming. Indeed, the presence of an outsider whose identity was unknown naturally aroused suspicion. However, this is not to suggest that they were rude or unfriendly. Probably several of them wondered if there were a reason for my presence, but since it did not concern them personally, they remained aloof. I am quite certain that this reaction influenced my decision to initially conduct my research covertly and to engage in a morally questionable practice.

Moral Challenges: Two Situations

I. Meeting Chaim As I have noted elsewhere, my earliest encounters with the hassidim were unsettling19 Completely unfamiliar with the scene I would eventually come to know, I simply began by standing off to the side and observing around me. My attire and appearance identified me as an outsider: I neither dressed in a black or dark-coloured suit nor did I )' my appearance include a beard and earlocks. In one particular case, I was visiting a hassidic summer colony in Prefontaine, in the Laurentian mountains, some 6o kilometres north of Montreal. I knew not a soul and not a single person acknowledged my presence or inquired whether, why, or how I might have accidentally strayed into this unfamiliar space. I watched as cars drove along a narrow dirt road, stopping at the shut (synagogue) to allow people to enter for the morning prayer service, the very purpose for which I was present; it seemed like a reasonable approach to gain initial access to this setting. ) However, my presence was not entirely unnoticed. A young man exited from a vehicle which included several hassidim. I noticed him because he was younger than the rest and, unlike the others, did not dress in kapotteh (a long, usually black, overcoat) but wore a dark suit. He appeared to be in his early twenties. Noticing me, he drew near, asked my name, and inquired about my presence. After I repled, he was silent and pensive for about thirty seconds, surveyed the scene from where we stood off to the side, and remarked: 'You see those people? A bunch off...... hypocrites. They're dirty. They live like pigs' and promptly left to be included in the prayer service about to begin. Needless to say, I was taken aback by the language and his claim about the lack of cleanliness. In the shul he sat with other adults, and he disappeared after the service. My attempts to locate him during 59 WILLIAM SHAFFIR subsequent visits were futile; my enquiries about his whereabouts resulted in quizzical looks and hunched shoulders. But I had had the presence of mind to ask his name, when he had asked mine. His first name was Chaim and I reasoned that his surname would be listed in the telephone directory on one of the streets in Outremont or the Plateau area of the city where the hassidim lived. I was in luck, managing to reach him after only a few wrong numbers. He had not forgotten our brief encounter. I asked if we could meet to talk about hassidim. He agreed but insisted that we do so at his friend's who, he assured me, was more knowledgeable about hassidim and was, himself, a hassid. I was excited by the prospect of this meeting, but it proved to be of little use. The friend in question, a married man with a family, was less than co-operative. He questioned me about my interests and intentions, and our conversation was strained and ended abruptly when Chaim announced that he had to leave. I telephoned Chaim the next day to request a meeting of just the two of us. He initially declined, explaining: 'Mr. T. thinks I should stay away from you. He says you're a bad influence'. My interests, I assured him, were not subversive in the least; in fact, I suggested, he might have some influence on me. Part of our subsequent conversation proceeded as follows: He: If you could do something for me, I might be able to meet you for an hour. I: What can I do for you? He: I need two things. First, a knife - a switch-blade -and second, a pair of brass knuckles. Can you get those two things for me? I: (somewhat stunned) It might be possible. I'll call you back in a few minutes. Procuring the goods proved simple. We met the following Sunday afternoon. Chaim entered my apartment carrying a brown bag and asked for the washroom. He returned a moment later carrying a wet bag and said: 'My mother thinks I went to the 'Y' (Young Men's Hebrew Association); I always go to the 'Y' on Sunday for a swim and I always return with a wet bathing suit'. This encounter was also less insightful than I had hoped because Chaim, it turned out, was far less knowledgeable about the hassidic community than I expected. However, as a neophyte to the field, and sensing that I had the opportunity to acquire 'juicy' and 'dirty' data about hassidim and their lifestyle, I would not let this possibility pass. Chaim's request, I realized, was highly unusual. Perhaps it was even dangerous, but I was not about to press the matter with him. I simply wanted to meet him again. Two additional points round out this story. First, Chaim claimed that he wanted the goods for self-defence purposes; appar­ ently, he had recently experienced some altercations with non-Jews. 6o FIELDWORK AMONG HASS!D!C JEWS And second, about a year later, he sought me out at a hassidic wedding, reminded me of our meetings, and insisted that he was now a changed person: I had caught him at an inopportune period in his life, when, affiliated with the hassidic community at the insistence of his parents, but against his will, he had turned against that community and slandered it.

2. Connecting With Tash Approximately eight months into my graduate studies, I became an office employee at Tash and was introduced to the anxieties and problems arising from covert research. The process by which I secured this position starkly demonstrated the degree to which field research may turn on happenstance and good fortune. Since the hassidic colony ofTash is not located in Montreal, the researcher combing the hassidic areas of the city could not stumble upon it. In fact, when I first visited the enclave, it was more than culturally insulated: it was physically isolated. It was surrounded by farms and situated along a gravel road a short distance from a major highway and a visitor would require precise directions to reach it. Several persons thought that I would find the sect particularly interesting. After a few months of field research, I was aware of the hassidim's deep suspicion of outsiders, particularly those whose presence could not be easily accounted for. I did not fit the category of other Jews, Orthodox or not, who may be present as invited guests ofhassidim for some festive or religious occasion. Even worse, I discovered, my initial self-identification as a student of sociology merely deepened their suspicion of me. Nevertheless, I could always rely on the excuse that 'I happened to be in the neighbourhood' and, as a Jew, had dropped in for prayer services. Correctly or not, I became convinced early on that any entirely honest presentation of my credentials - after all, I felt no connection to their lifestyle, had no interest in becoming even moderately observant, and was there only to carry out academic research - would not only make me unwelcome, but indeed that I would be shown the door and asked never to return. Because of its location, gaining access to the Tash enclave was considerably more challenging. I could not claim to be 'in the neighbourhood'. An earlier attempt to enter the community in the guise of an English teacher for the secular programme of the school for boys proved unsuccessful. I later learned that the essential qualification for that position was one's level of Jewish observance rather than academic achievements. Hence, an Orthodox candidate who had yet to complete high school was appointed. One day, and entirely by accident, a single telephone call opened the door for a job interview at Tash. While speaking to a former 6! WILLIAM SHAFFIR employee of that community- a non-hassid- I asked how I might learn more about those hassidim. To him the answer was obvious. He asked: 'Why not get a job there?' and dialled a number. He said in Yiddish, 'K'hob emitz_in gijinnen' ('I have found someone') and the conversation lasted no more than two minutes. Turning to me, he said: 'You have an interview on Sunday morning at 9 o'clock with Rabbi .. .'. That interview was quite brief. Introducing himself as the yeshiva's 'foreign minister', and asking a few questions about my background, the rabbi seemed more interested in detailing the community's needs. The yeshiva, he explained, required funds and letters had to be written to prospective contributors. 'Kenst shreibn?' ('Can you write?') he inquired. As a test of my proficiency, I was instructed to draft a letter to a prominent member of Canada's Senate. I passed the test. While my essential responsibilities involved composing letters, that rabbi and his colleague would occasionally seek my advice for fund-raising ideas which they were considering. The practicality of some of the ideas was, at times, highly doubtful. On one occasion, for example, I assured them that although newly­ assembled vehicles seemingly served little purpose while parked on a huge lot outside the General Motors assembly plant near the enclave, it was most unlikely that the corporation would define the vehicles as surplus to requirements and would donate several of them to the Tash community. Evaluating my situation, it seemed that I could ask for little more. I had not only gained access to the community, but I was drafting many, if not most, of the letters revealing its financial hardship and requesting funds and other contributions. The two Tasher with whom I worked provided the requisite background information, both about contributors and the community, thereby giving me knowledge of the kind which was available only to insiders. Moreover, my motives for having sought employment were never called into question. Although they knew that I attended university and was pursuing a Master's degree - information which was entirely meaningless to one of them - the topic of my research was never broached. It was simply assumed that I had applied for my post in order to earn a salary; the possibility that my employment was intended to collect information about the community and to write about it was simply inconceivable. New to the scene, intoxicated by access to what I perceived as aspects of the community's inner sanctum (matters of finance, loans, debts), and convinced that I must collect as much data as possible, and as quickly as possible (who knew when I might have to leave?), I photostated an extra copy of all correspondence I dealt with, and other materials from the files, for my personal data file. I did not request permission to do so and hoped that I could successfully maneuvre about the office and not be discovered. And indeed, I was 62 FIELDWORK AMONG HASSIDIC JEWS successful: my file on Tash eventually included several hundred items of correspondence, which I and others had written, and which in their totality presented some fascinating data pertaining to the enclave's economic and fund-raising activities. A Yiddish expression, when roughly translated into English, asks: 'If things are going so well, why are they so bad?' The answer was obvious almost from the start: the access I had secured was more virtual than real. Both the position I occupied, and the understanding that accounted for my presence, narrowly confined my range of activities within the setting. I had intended to use the position as a springboard for examining other aspects of hassidic life which interested me, but in fact, my position severely constrained my lines of activity, contacts, and inquiry. Rosalie Wax has correctly observed that the members of a community who are the subjects of our research assess our personal credentials and organize their relationships with us on that basis rather than on the academic merits of our work. 20 She is equally correct in claiming that the initial roles we project and/ or are assigned become the defining ones in terms of the latitudes we enjoy in the field. Since I was defined first and foremost as an office employee, I was not expected to enquire about the community any more than any interested outsider would and was therefore accorded the right to only briefly ask general questions about the Tash enclave and the hassidim who lived there. I was clearly an outsider since I made no pretence of being an observant Jew and was therefore an enigma to the Tasher. However, while my appearance differed radically from their own, my Yiddish was as fluent and I easily engaged in this lingua franc a of the community. My Tasher supervisors were concerned about any untoward influences I might inadvertently exercise on younger members of the community, that could result from conversations with me, and they instructed me to direct to them any questions I might have. In other words, bokherim- unmarried yeshiva students- were out of bounds for me as far as my hosts were concerned. Their polite way of making this clear was a variation of the following: 'Ze'ev [my Hebrew name], it would be better if you didn't speak with any of the bokherim because they're supposed to be learning and they shouldn't be distracted'. However, these very same bokherim were deeply curious about me, and not infrequently sought me out. Above all, they wondered about my Jewish background and my impressions of their enclave. When such conversations were noticed by any of the principals with whom I worked, they would intervene with: 'Nishtu kein tzeit tze redn. Er hot tzee feel tze teen in rrfis' ('There's no time to talk. He has too much to do in the office'). As far as they were concerned, nothing productive would emerge from such conversations and, moreover, what could I possibly ask those students, or anyone in the community that they, my hosts, could not answer? In this manner, I 63 WILLIAl\I SHAFFIR was effectively precluded from seeking out general views about a range of interests I developed - for instance, how knowledgeable they were about events beyond the community, whether they enjoyed living in the Tash enclave as opposed to Montreal where the other hassidim lived, how marriages were arranged, or the programme of secular studies available in their schools. In fact, I had little opportunity to ask about any of these matters and, in the end, learned comparatively little about the community. My discoveries about the financial side of things were not of any particular interest to me at the time. Moreover, those latter data pertained only to one segment of the community's financial picture­ relatively small contributions resulting from solicitations. Though highly significant, it was not reasonable to inquire about various other means by which funds were secured to support Tasher institutions. To begin with, I knew that such information would be considered confidential. Second, and more to the point, what interest could I have in inquiring about such matters? While my initial enquiries might possibly be met by polite, but vague, responses, persistent questioning about financially-related matters was simply inconsistent with my tenure as an office employee who was there in order to earn extra income. As I wrote in a previously-published article in this Journal,21 my connections with Tash have changed dramatically since these earliest encounters in 1970. Today I have the names and telephone numbers of several Tasher whom I feel free to telephone at their homes. Interestingly, I can think of only rare instances when my request to meet someone was rejected. However, at that point in my academic career, and in the community's history, the option of conducting the research openly seemed impossible. At best, I surmised, I might be invited to tour the community, ask a few questions, and then would be invited to leave within an hour or two. While the option of overt research might have been available to another social scientist, my overall assessment, as perfect or imperfect it might have been, led me to pursue the surreptitious route. Though exciting, not to mention anxiety-provoking, the experience also introduced me to some of the serious drawbacks accompanying covert research.

Missed Opportunities While my Master's thesis provided a very general overview of the hassidim in Montreal, focusing largely on their insulation from mainstream society, the doctorate examined the Lubavitch sect. In it, I focused mainly on the community's history in Montreal, how a distinctive identity was established and maintained, including the organization of schools and outreach activities in the larger Jewish 64 FIELDWORK AMONG HASS!D!C JEWS society. I described and analysed the Lubavitcher's tefillin campaign and other proselytizing activities,22 including how newcomers - baalei tshuvah (newly-observant Jews) - were processed into the community. In hindsight, I realize that my examination of these topics reflected the kinds of relationships I established in the field. For the first year, culminating in the Master's thesis, my contacts with hassidim were fleeting. As I established my presence among the Lubavitcher, I mainly befriended the older students of the yeshiva, precisely those involved in the outreach and proselytizing for which the community was both admired and criticised. As I have reviewed those data over the years, and my experiences in the field, I realize that opportunities were lost to study institutions other than the schools and outreach work which were the immediate focus of my research. I have two particular institutions in mind, both of which were absolutely essential for understanding the issue which was central to my study: how the community managed to organize, shape, and control the socialization of its members. The first of these is the family and the second is the pivotal role of the rebbe. While so obvious now, my research would have benefited immeasurably from more intensive involvement with families and by examining in detail how life within them was structured, and how this institution complemented others to ensure that Lubavitcher remained committed to an Orthodox­ Lubavitch way oflife. Such attention would have focused also on the role of gender in family organization and how, as some of the data revealed, men and women lived in 'different' worlds. Moreover, as the family is such a pivotal institution among hassidim, it provides opportunities for appreciating how courtship and marriage are organized, and its role in shielding members from undesirable social influences. In short, failing to analyse the family - a microcosm of the community - resulted in a less-than-complete understanding of community life. A possibly important reason for my inattention to it was the demand that such observation would have placed on my time. This institution was best observed in vivo, as family members were gathered, for example, for the Sabbath or for Jewish festivals. I discovered early on that an invitation for Shabbess [the Sabbath], though easily obtained, generally required that I commit most of a day to this experience. It meant joining the husband for morning services at the yeshiva and then returning there for the afternoon and evening services. I was unwilling to devote so much time even if such a commitment would result in a better study. As critical as the family may be for purposes of socialization, the institution of the rebbe (a hassidic sect's charismatic leader) is absolutely central not only to the identity of the individual hassid but for the entire community. This realization occurred almost immedi­ ately upon entering the field. My initial visit to Lubavitch was 6s WILLIAM SHAFFIR dominated by references to the rebbe. When an older yeshiva student urged me to lay on tefillin (phylacteries), he emphasized the importance which the rebbe attached to this mit;:_vah (commandment). Indeed, the Lubavitchcr showcased the rebbe at every imaginable opportunity. Whatever the topic of conversation, they quickly related it to some aspect of the rebbe's biographical past or his current writings and activities. The rebbe, I was soon to learn, was well-versed not only in Middle Eastern politics (since he was in close contact with Israeli and American politicians at the highest echelons of government) but also in matters of education, science, religion, leisure, sports, the Holocaust- really any topic. Knowledgeable Lubavitcher would cite an appropriate statement, letter, sichah (discourse) of the rebbe, demonstrating both his wisdom and their veneration of him. Evidence of the rebbe's centrality was immediately obvious also among the Tasher hassidim. Whereas the Lubavitcher rebbe lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the Tasher's lived in the Tash enclave and I regularly observed a coterie of assistants surrounding him as he briskly paced to his chauffered car, or anywhere in the community, and witnessed the hush of silence settling on an assembly of hundreds of followers as someone announced 'Der rebbe kimpt' (The rebbe is about to arrive). Followers consulted their respective rebbe and sought his blessing and approval before embarking upon any consequential course of action. VVhile employed at Tash, many of my instructions were prefaced by, 'The rcbbe believes', or 'The rebbe says'. I always overheard references to the rebbe during telephone conversations; callers would be informed of a specific blessing oflered by the rebbe, or assured that the rebbe would be consulted about the particular matter which was causing concern. I learned that telephone calls to the Lubavitcher rebbe's secretaries in Brooklyn were routinely made to influence a desired course of action. Once, while attending a visitor's day at a Lubavitch summer camp, the prospect of rain threatened to cancel an outdoor programme prepared for visitors. Moments before the programme was to begin, one of the organizers announced to his colleague: 'I'm making the phone call'. The 'call' was to '77o' (the street number of the world headquarters of Lubavitch), to secure the rebbe's prayer to delay the rain. 1 Coincidentally or not, the skies cleared. While aware of the rebbe's stature among hassidim, I paid too little attention to the numerous ways in which he effectively shaped the behaviour I was observing. Only much later did I appreciate how the i rebbe - by his teachings, pronouncements, and advice - was the bedrock of any community of has si dim and that everything revolved and was organized around his activities. For example, the rebbe's approval directly influenced hassidim's lines of work, marriages, 66 FIELDWORK A:'v!ONG HASS!D!C JEWS education, consultations with health professionals, and much more. Regrettably, I failed to appreciate how discussions about the rebbe could serve as a conduit for examining other aspects of hassidic life. And ironically, hassidim eagerly volunteered stories about the rebbe's miraculous powers and sagacious advice despite a reluctance to talk about themselves. But they would voluntarily relate their experiences with the rebbe to illustrate their dependence on him and, in the process, reveal aspects of their personal lives. The researcher had but to be wise to ask, and then remain a patient listener. I was patient but not sufficiently wise.

Conclusion Lofland and Lofland remind us that 'life in the field' is never static, and that new situations continually emerge requiring new solutions. 23 Many researchers have documented the changing statuses and roles they have occupied as their research unfolded. Of the various reasons for such changes, one which is less well documented, and overlooked, is that' ... while researchers attend to the study of other persons and their activities, these others attend to the study of researchers and their activities'. 24 vVith the exception of extreme cases where, for example, the researcher is no longer welcomed and is asked to leave, it is not usually possible to gauge accurately the impression made by the researcher. Strangely, such uncertainty adds to the excitement, frustration, and anxiety occasioned by field research. In response to such uncertainty, researchers may embark upon courses of action which are less than ethical and potentially harmful to the individuals and groups under observation. In my particular case, the issues in question concerned supplying possibly dangerous implements to a potential informant and relying upon a covert research strategy. In retrospect, both decisions, while objectionable to my mind today, seemed not unreasonable at the time. However, hindsight fails to fully appreciate the circumstances and constraints of fieldwork. In truth, I probably would not hesitate to repeat both courses of action if I were beginning again and if I were confronted with identical or similar situations. Research accounts should identify the discrepancy between methodology in theory and in actual practice and attend, where applicable, to areas of investigation which might have been neglected or overlooked.

NOTES 1 Robert K. :Merton, 'Forward', in Bernard Barber, rev. ed., Science and the Social Order, New York, rg62. Inattention to the affective dimensions of research has also reflected field work accounts; however, this gap has become the subject of cousiderable scholarship over the past two decades and, in the WILLIAM SHAFFIR process, field researchers have revealed increasingly their prejudices, anxiet­ ies, likes and dislikes as these pertain to their work. 2 See Howard S. Becker, Sociological Work: Method and Substance, Chicago, 1970. After all, as Becker asserts, for a variety of reasons there is concern that the conclusions of field studies are untrustworthy: they may be interesting, and plausible, but are they credible? Since field workers occasionally come up with different characterizations of the same or similar institution or community, it would appear that the biases of the researcher shape the outcome of the study in ways that this could not occur if more rigorous methods of social research were used. In fact, however, Becker argues convincingly that participant observation research is least, not most, likely to be influenced by the particular predilections and characteristics of the investigator. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Richard A. Brymer presents this point, as well as the advantages of field research, clearly and persuasively in 'Hanging Out With The Good 'Ole Boys, Gangsters, and Other Disreputable Characters: Field Research, Quantitative Research, and Exceptional Events', in Scott Grills, ed., Doing Ethnographic Research: Fieldwork Settings, Thousand Oaks, CA, I 998, pp. I43-6I. 6 See Fred Davis, 'Comment on "Initial Interaction of Newcomers in Alcoholics Anonymous"', Social Problems, vol. 8, no. 4, I96I, pp. 364-65; Julius Roth, 'Comments on "Secret Observation"', Social Pmhlems, vol. g, no. 3, I 962, pp 283-84; and Kai T. Erikson, 'A Comment On Disguised Observation in Sociology', Social Problems, vol. '4, no. 4, I 967, pp. 366-73. 7 Charles Shahar, Morton Weinfeld, and Randal F. Schnoor, Survey Of The Hassidic & Ultra-Orthodox Communities in Outremont & Surrounding Areas, Montreal, I 997, p. 7. 8 See Janet S. Belcove-Shalin, ed., New World Hasidim: Ethnographic Studies of Hasidic Jews In America, Albany, NY, I 995· She cites reports of deviance and crime involving hassidim including, for example, child and drug abuse, violence, racism, and kidnapping. Moreover, reports of various other illegal acts have been featured in the press. 9 Samuel C. Heilman, 'Introduction', in Belcove-Shalin, op. cit. in Note 8 above, p. xii. 10 See William Shaffir, 'Montreal's Hassidim Revisited: A Focus On Change', in Simcha Fishbane and Jack N. Lightstone, eds., ASsays In The Social Scientific Study OJJudaismAndJewish Sociery, Montreal, I ggo, pp. 305-22. 11 See Charles Shahar et al., op. cit. in Note 7 above. 12 Shaffir, op. cit. in Note IO above. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 In a story headed 'OutremontJews to fight for ritual', the 28 September 2000 issue of the Canadian Jewish News reported that the request of Outremont's ultra-Orthodoxjewish community's for permission to encircle some city blocks with Iranslucent fishing wire or string- a practice called Eruv, which allows residents to engage in activities normally proscribed on the Sabbath- was refused. Under Jewish religious law, it is forbidden to 68 FIELDWORK AMONG HASSIDIC JEWS move items of any kind on the Sabbath or on a Jewish Holy day, such as strollers for children, wheelchairs for the handicapped, or even house keys, gloves, medication, or reading glasses. The Eruv, found in dozens of cities, including New York, London, Jerusalem, or even on some l\llontreal streets (around Cote St. Luc, Hampstead, and Dollard des Ormeaux) symbolically turns the encircled area into a single dwelling, enabling people to sidestep the ban against carrying outside one's home on the Sabbath. An editorial in the Globe and Mail of 19 October 2000 stated' ... Outremont has declared the eruv-delineating fishing line in its jurisdiction to be a religious invasion of public property and has cut it down. The religious Jews are suing the city for violating the guarantee of religious freedom in the Charter ofRights'. 16 Shahar, op. cit. in Note 7 above. 17 The authors of the survey quote a hassidic social worker who claimed: :Mental illness is out there, and there is a lot of it. And v.:c're not calling it psychosis or schizophrenia, we're calling it 'problems with the nerves'. But it's gelling to be so much of it and so severe that it's going to be addressed pretty soon. It's got to be a major crisis- close to hospitalization -before people will see a counsellor. [The] shame [and] the stigma [are] much more severe [in our community]. 18 See William Shaffir, 'Managing a Convincing Self-Presentation: Some Personal Reflections on Entering the Field', in William B. Shaffir and Robert A. Stebbins, cds., Experiencing Fieldwork: An Inside View of Qyaiitative Research, Newbury Park, CA, I99I, pp. 72-81. 19 See William Shaffir, 'Some Reflections on Approaches to Fieldwork in Hassidic Communities', The Jewish Journal of Sociology, vol. 37, no. 2, December 1985, pp. 115-34- 20 See Rosalie H. Wax, Doing Fieldwork: Warnings and Advice, Chicago, I97 I. 21 See 'Still Separated From the Mainstream: A Hassidic Community Revisited', The Jewish Journal of Sociology, vol. 39, nos. 1&2, I997, pp. 46-62. 22 See William Shaffir, Life In A Religious Community: The Lubavitcher Chassidim In Montreal, Montreal, I 974· 23 See John Loftand and Lyn H. Lofland, Anaiyzing Social Settings: A Guide To Qualitative Observation And Analysis, 3rd edn., Belmont, CA, I995· 24 See John Van Maanen, 'Playing Back the Tape: Early Days in the Field', in Shaffir and Stebbins, eds., op. cit. in Note 18 above, pp. 31-42.

69 DEFINING ANTISEMITISM: THE GOLDSMID LIBEL TRIAL, Igq-Igi8 Edna Bradlow

I

N I 6 November I g I 7, Lionel Goldsmid, editor of the weekly South African Jewish Chronicle (SAJC) brought a libel action in 0 the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court against Solomon Vogelson, alleging that the latter was responsible for publishing two defamatory letters in the African Jewish World, a two-page English supplement to the Yiddish-language weekly Der Afrikaner, of which Vogelson was founder and editor. 1 The case is of interest to the historian on several counts. The legal proceedings lasted I 2 months and exposed the tensions and animosit­ ies between individuals and groups within a community comprising recent Eastern European immigrants and the earlier Anglo-German arrivals; the latter were already assimilated to the host culture and constituted a small elite. The inherent weakness of South African Jewry made the community vulnerable to external crises, obliging it outwardly to present a unity based primarily on a shared religion. Success in normally projecting this consensus is proved by the comment of Stephen Black, a well-known theatre manager, that 'it would be a change to see aJew attacking another'2 The background to the litigation - the First World War and the heavy casualties suffered by Britain and her allies (including Russia)­ served in South Africa to reveal, among other consequences, how hostile the English-speaking section of the population was towards the new immigrants. Thus the most important aspect of the case was the Transvaal Supreme Court's pronouncement as to what, in its unanimous opinion, constituted antisemitism. The judgement was a benchmark, against which prejudice - whether racial, religious or associated with gender- can be measured at any time, anywhere.

The]ewish]oumal q[Sociology, vol. 43, nos. rand 2, 2001. THE GOLDS:VIID LIBEL TRIAL Though the 'supporting cast' in the events preceding, and during, the libel hearing was considerable, Goldsmid was the main protagon­ ist. Born into a well-known Anglo-Jewish family in Birmingham, he came to Southern Africa as a young man, and in I 902 founded 77ze South African Jewish Chronicle in Cape Town, subsequently moving it to Johannesburg, the economic heart of the region. 3 Goldsmid's early years in South Africa coincided with the large influx ofJewish immigrants escaping poverty and persecution in the Russian Empire. The first Union census in I 9 I I indicated that there were some 47,oooJews throughout the country, a large proportion of whom lived on the Witwatersrand.4 Like other members of the acculturated elite in both England and South Africa, Goldsmid believed that the irreversible nature of the Eastern European exodus demanded that the new arrivals be made as inconspicuous as possible by speedily exposing them to the predominant culture. He therefore used the SA]C to propagate a symbiosis between traditional religious and experiential values, and the normative secular behaviour of urbanized, English -speaking whites in particular. The war disclosed the incompatibility between the two goals. For while the SA]C's cover proclaimed the Jewish community's loyalty to the British Empire ('The pro-British :Jewish journal. Victory for the Allies'), before the Russian Revolution Russian-born Jews did not rush to enlist. Doubtlessly their own experiences did not encourage a willingness to sacrifice their lives for England's despotic ally Russia by fighting Germany- an enemy rather more tolerant of its Jews. Despite Stephen Black's belief in Jewish solidarity, internal divis­ iveness was a significant characteristic of the community. Enlistment was the most conspicuous among several issues involving Goldsmid, over which Jews were split. In October I g I 6, defending his turf as editor of the Union's leading English-languageJewishjournal, he was critical when the monthly <:,ionist Record (which canvassed a message­ Herzlian separateness - at variance with his own assimilationist belief), proposed to appear weekly. He complained that people 'prefer to start opposition concerns rather than stiffen and assist those which are already in existence'.5 More acrimonious was the disagreement between Goldsmid and the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (particularly Bernard Alexander, chairman of the Board's Executive) which was precipitated by Goldsmid's repeated, and in Alexander's opinion, 'unjustifiable' attacks on the Russian Jewish War Victims' Fund, established to help refugees. In an editorial in March I 9 I 7, Goldsmid deplored the publicity 'cultivated' by the Fund's committee when it published­ Unionwide- a list of mainly English-speaking, middle-class Jewish contributors. This, he claimed, had aroused a good deal of hostility in the white population on the grounds that Jewish charity was exclusive, 7I EDNA BRADLO\V only supporting its 'own particular fund to the detriment of the general endeavour which is being made by the entire population, regardless of race and irrespective of creed'. 6 Goldsmid's attitude was perhaps a rather overstated expression of his belief that Jews should do nothing- other than the practice of their religion - to distinguish them from their fellow citizens. He went further however, criticizing the Fund's administration. 7 At first glance it seems rather surprising then, to find him being invited, together with other press representatives, to attend a meeting of the Fund on 30 May I 9 I 7, chaired by Bernard Alexander. His presence infuriated the audience, which unanimously insisted that no SAJC representative be allowed to attend future meetings, and that Goldsmid leave, immediately, before he was assaulted." Incensed, he subsequently returned to an ad hominem attack on Alexander and others, deprecating the extravagance and lack of supervision which was resulting in 'the waste of money that is subscribed for the amelioration of the condition of our poor co­ religionists in Eastern Europe'. Unfortunately, the phrasing of his comment was open to misinterpretation. Some readers perceived it as an attack on the very intention of helping Jewish war victims in the Russian Empire; and Goldsmid was obliged to emphasize that he had always 'championed ... the Russianjews'. _. cause'. 9 His continued arrogance and aggressiveness, however, further damaged his interests- sufficiently, in fact, for the Alexander faction to call a meeting of all communal organizations on 2 I October I g I 7 to discuss the establishment of an 'official (Yiddish or bilingual]Jewish communal weekly newspaper', patently meant to compete with Goldsmid's publication. Such an organ already existed in the form of the African Jewish World which had been launched on 26July I9I7 in opposition to the Chronicle; but a takeover of the Zionist Record and its publication as a weekly, seems again to have been considered. Within days a committee was appointed to investigate the viability of the project- which did not, however, materialize. 10 Though Goldsmid's criticism of those who administered the War Victims' Fund accounted for the initial dislike he aroused, it was the enlistment issue which became the communal battleground, ironically because it was not simply an internal matter; and here again Goldsmid's arrogance ensured that he would be in the forefront of hostilities. Already in mid-April I 9 I 6, members of the Johannesburg Recruiting Committee were drawing attention to a perception, surfacing in the general population, that Jews (and particularly the Eastern Europeans) were not joining up in sufficient numbers. Goldsmid correctly maintained that Jews were responding to the campaign; he blamed this antagonism on the communal leadership's failure to provide reliable statistics of Jewish volunteers in order to 72 THE GOLDSM!D LIBEL TRIAL counter such allegations -something which the Zionist Record was attempting to do already in 1915-r6. 11 Nevertheless the fact that Goldsmid urged young 'Russian and Polish' Jews, in an editorial in August I 9 I 6, to 'recognise their responsibility in this direction' indicates that he believed the charge to have some validity. 12 The accusations continued the following year. The Cape Times, for example - whose editor, Maitland Park, enjoyed provoking contro­ versy - printed several critical letters. One, particularly venomous, commented on the number ofJews 'of suitable appearance and age' sunbathing on Muizenberg beach - the ultimate in slacking. Goldsmid castigated the Cape press for giving space to a discussion which, in his opinion, 'cultivate[ d]Jew baiting... but it does not bring one Jewish volunteer the more'. 13 After the February (early March, by the Western calendar) 1917 Revolution in Russia however, the refusal to make common cause with a repressive, xenophobic regime could no longer be offered as an excuse for not responding to the enlistment campaign at a near disastrous period for the Allies in the conflict against Germany. Possibly, the overthrow of the Tsarist regime precipitated Goldsmid's summons, in early March, to the office ofj. W. O'Hara, who was the mayor of Johannesburg and also the local Chief Recruiting Officer. Like other members of his committee (though far better disposed to the Jewish community), O'Hara claimed personal knowledge of the continuing, hostile sentiments being expressed countrywide (but more particularly inJohannesburg) against Russian Jews. 14 He therefore suggested that Goldsmid publish an article encouraging them to enlist. 15 A similar appeal which had appeared in the London's Jewish Chronicle the previous month served as Goldsmid's model. His editorial entitled 'The Call to the Jew', copies of which were sent to the Recruiting Committee, appeared in the SA]C of I 6 March I 91 7. 'British' Jews in South Africa had answered the call, he emphasized; but Russian Jews had not come forward despite the February Revolution. This, in fact, was not wholly correct; many did enlist. But attempts to estimate, more accurately, the number ofJewish volun­ teers had (as noted), thus far been unsuccessful. According to Goldsmid, the belief consequently persisted that Jews were inherently cowards, failing in their duty 'to the country under whose free and glorious flag we carry on a peaceful and prosperous existence'; and this accusation could only be effectively refuted if the large Eastern European population in Johannesburg enlisted. Goldsmid might have believed that his relationship with the Recruiting Committee was neutral but it is doubtful the latter saw it that way. At the libel trial he maintained that he had agreed to O'Hara's suggestion not because he himself was biased against 73 EDNA BRADLOW Russian Jews, but to forestall an escalation of the violence which was purportedly beginning to surface in Johannesburg as soldiers began returning from the war. 16 O'Hara's subsequent evidence in court indicates that he and Goldsmid deliberated together over this editorial before its publication, and that he had put the possibility of violence into Goldsmid's mind. The editorial's attitude received reinforcement from a predictable quarter. Maitland Park warned in the Cape Times in March I 9 I 7 that the acceptance of'foreign'Jews as fellow-citizens in the British Empire was contingent upon their community not offering 'special pleas ...to excuse those who are not doing their duty'. 17 During the year, various suggestions were put forward in the Jewish community to deflect the criticism. Opinion was divided over the efficacy of mass meetings addressed by the communal leadership urging fellow:Jews to volunteer. This could be embarrassing since many of the elite in both Cape Town and Johannesburg had been born in, and still had connections with, Central Powers countries - the German Empire and Austria Hungary. Working more closely with the Recruiting Committee had greater potential. So too did the establishment of a Statistical Bureau, listing the names of Jewish volunteers, which was effected during I 9 I 7. A proposal to form an exclusively Jewish unit as an inducement to volunteer was variously received by the two main Jewish com­ munities.18 The suggestion was put to the Cape Town Recruiting Committee, with the added condition that such a unit be used only in conflict zones, such as the Sinai, Palestine and Syria, which particu­ larly concerned Jews. However, the proposal was withdrawn, the committee unanimously agreeing about its 'impracticability'. Some months later the British War Office rejected a similar plan, preferring to organize British and unnaturalized Russian Jewish volunteers as battalions of an existing regiment; but for a number of reasons this was not a solution that was accepted in South Africa. 19

11 'The Call to the Jew', and two subsequent editorials in April and June attacking individuals personally, ensured that a good deal of antagonism towards Goldsmid had built up in the Jewish community when, in October I 9 I 7, two letters in the African Jewish World provoked him into bringing three libel actions (and claims for £Ioo damages in each case) against S. Vogelson as editor of Der Ajrikaner, and the two companies (The African Union Printing Works and the Jewish Publishing Syndicate Ltd) involved in its production, and in both of which Vogelson was a partner. 74 THE GOLDSMID LIBEL TRIAL The first letter, headed 'Our own anti-semites' appeared on rr October. In it the SA]C was described as 'a local obscure print' with a very poor circulation, whose editor 'belched forth with a veritable volcano of abuse against many prominent members of our commun­ ity', together with South African Russian Jews in general. The writer asked: 'Is there really nothing at all to be done to save us from the very worst of our enemies, our own anti-semites?'20 The second letter, :Jewish and non-Jewish Anti-semites', published on 25 October, continued in the same vein. It accused the SA]C of being 'though Jewish, yet most malignant to the local Jewish population'; and consequently implied that its editor was an antisemite. The legal teams - both in the Magistrate's Court and in the Transvaal Supreme Court - were wholly Jewish and included two leading advocates, Manfred Nathan for Goldsmid and Harry Morris for the defendants. The basis of Goldsmid's case was that he had been defamed by being accused of antisemitism, because of his continuing calls to Jews to respond to the Recruting Committee's promptings. In their plea filed on 23 November, the defendants claimed that their words 'were true in substance and in fact ...published without. .. malice ... in the public interest. . .fair comment made in good faith'." Though the case was scheduled for hearing on r 2 December rgr 7 in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court, in the event the trial began on 7 January rgr8 and continued intermittently during January, February and March, before Advocate Morgan Evans, a newly­ appointed magistrate in that court. 22 Neither Cowen, who edited the English supplement, nor Vogelson, described by J. A. Poliva as 'an upright and truthful person', was put on the stand23 Consideration of the fundamental issue -a definition of antisemitism - was largely submerged in the tendency of defence witnesses to dwell on the extent of Russian Jewish enlistment (about which, however, their evidence was largely anecdotal): but personal animosities also played an important part. One witness, L. P. Hersch, was Russian-born and therefore sympathetic to the generality of Russian Jewish immigrants; but he also had a grudge against Goldsmid who had employed- and subsequently dismissed- him. The attack in 'The Call to the Jews', he maintained, was undeserved, and therefore made the writer an antisemite. The worst antisemite was a Jewish one, according to Capt. H. Levinson, chaplain to the Jewish volunteers in the East African campaign. (His estimate of their number, of whom half, he claimed were Eastern European seems to have been inflated). I. M. Goodman, self-styled 'authority on the Russian Jew' and, till recently, treasurer of the War Victims' Fund, stated that Goldsmid had been expelled from the Fund's May meeting because his 'Call to the Jew' editorial had 'showed Jew hatred'. 75 EDNA BRAD LOW Despite Manfred Nathan's gruelling cross-examination, undoubtedly the most self-confident and articulate witness was Bernard Alexander, the chairman of the Executive of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. His evidence is a useful source for a social historian; it also, according to Morgan Evans, was to a great extent responsible for his judgement. Alexander was a German-born attorney living in Johannesburg since its inception; he had become interested in Jewish affairs in about r8g4, and subsequently had held various public offices in the community. Alexander denied Nathan's claim that he was a hostile witness; he maintained that he was simply giving his opinion that the Goldsmid editorial was potentially explosive. Nathan, however, was correct. Not only did Alexander bear a grudge over Goldsmid's attacks on the administration of the War Victims' Fund; under cross-examination it emerged that he had invested in a publishing company established by Goldsmid and B. S. Hersch, and that he held Goldsmid responsible for the liquidation of that company. From the trial record it would appear that Nathan's cross­ examination was intended to cast further doubt on Alexander's impartiality by demonstrating that his loyalty to the British Empire was equivocal. Not only had he been born in Germany; he had become a Transvaal burgher at a time when the British Uitlancler population's antagonism to Kruger was at its most rancorous. In his riposte, Alexander asked the court to protect him against such personal insinuations; he had, in fact, been a member of the predominantly English Unionist Party since rgro. Questioned on the enlistment issue, Alexander admitted that there was ongoing public resentment against Jews on this matter; but he added that 'The Call to the Jew' had exacerbated this feeling. He defined an antisemite as 'a man opposed to theJewish cause who is against the Jewish race': and he agreed with Hersch and Levinson that 'renegades' were 'worse anti-semites than non :Jews'. The plaintiff's witnesses by comparison focused on the harm an accusation of antisemitism could do to a Jew. Emile Nathan, member of parliament, argued that whereas the SA]C was published in the Jewish interest, an antisemite would be 'antagonistic to Jewish interests and to a Jew'; to be described thus was a slur, which could be injurious to the reputation of someone in Goldsmid's position. Morris Kentridge, a Johannesburg lawyer of Russian origin, agreed but nevertheless believed that Goldsmid's editorial had been unjustifiably critical ofRussianJews. Cross-examined by Harry Morris for the defendants, Goldsmid censured the African Jewish· World letters for virtually portraying him as a 'religious and moral pervert'. An antisemite, in his opinion, was one who attacked Jews maliciously and without cause. This had not been 76 THE GOLDSMID LIBEL TRIAL the case with 'The Call to the Jew', which was based on his own observation of the social behaviour of Russian Jews over a period of time. 24 In his closing argument, Manfred Nathan labelled the letters 'a very crude and cruel libel'. He himself, he emphasized, would not have appeared in the case, had he thought Russian Jews were being 'maligned' by Goldsmid. Harry Morris, for the defendants, in turn offered a 'deal'; in the absence of evidence indicating that Goldsmid had suffered damage as a result of the words in question, both sides should withdraw their accusations. Morgan Evans favoured such a settlement and adjourned the case sine die to achieve this. Yet his own final remarks on 27 March I9I8 show that his attitude was equivocal. Russian Jews in Johannesburg had resented the accusation of cowardice; and the Jewish leadership had testified to their loyalty to Britain, and their fulfilment of the moral obligations that this entailed. Thus, he noted, in a sense the case served to 'rehabilitate' them. But he also expressed his sympathy with Goldsmid, 'a man of great ability', who had obviously become the scapegoat either of the Recruiting Committee or of O'Hara: the latter had instigated Goldsmid's editorial 'without considering the possible consequences'25 However, the magistrate then proceeded severely to criticize 'The Call to the Jew', which he believed to have exacerbated the existing animosity towards so-called 'foreign' Jews on the Rand, thus constituting a potential physical threat. Goldsmid had failed to use official statistics to test the extent of their response to the recruiting campaign, 'recklessly and maliciously' accusing them of cowardice and dereliction of their duty. (Subsequently the Supreme Court found that Goldsmid had been entirely justified in assuming that the Chief Recruiting Officer's information had been accurate.) As for the other two polemical editorials, out of 'personal spite and vindictiveness' he had 'wantonly, maliciously and without good grounds, abused prominent members of the Jewish community, and adversely and falsely criticised the administration of the Relief Fund'. Considered together with his blanket condemnation of the Russian Jews as 'slackers and cowards' there was good reason for calling Goldsmid an antisemite, particularly given the circumstances at the time on the Rand. The trial was resumed early in Augu.st, when Morgan Evans, giving judgement, maintained that 'the defence of fair comment and justification' had been proved, and dismissed the case. 26 Leave to appeal was noted and heard by a full bench of the Transvaal Supreme Court on 30 September and I October I 9 I 8. It unanimously reversed the previous judgement and awarded the appellant £5 damages and costs in both courts. The nub of the issue in the Magistrate's Court had been Russian Jewish enlistment while in the Supreme Court it was a definition of antisemitism. Though guided to some extent by 77 EDNA BRADLOW the views of witnesses, previously articulated, the court emphasized that it was also acting on its own opinion which was that the Jewish community, like any other section of the population, must accept both internal and external criticism. If such criticism were 'unfair or exaggerated or even untrue' (as was the case, to varying degrees, in all three contentious editorials), appropriate measures existed to redress this. But the judges rejected the view that criticism 'of a Jewish fund or a Jewish business or a section of the Jewish community' made a man an 'enemy of the Jewish race'. Proceeding from that premise the Supreme Court interpreted the word 'antisemitism' not as an attack on a Jewish individual, but as substantively meaning 'to attack Jews on the ground of race and religion, or to maliciously ascribe to them racial or religious character­ istics calculated to hold them up to derision and contempt'. That interpretation resembles the contemporary definition of racism as 'an ideology that seeks to attach negative intrinsic [sic] significance to racial differences and in this way justifies discrimination against members of particular races'.2' (The full judgement, as printed in The South African Jewish Chronicle of 29 November rgr8, is given in the appendix to this article.)

Ill

On 20 November rgr8, the Board of Deputies in Johannesburg called a meeting, attended largely by members of various lands­ mannschaflen, at which the Board agreed to administer a fund, supported by public subscription, to cover Vogelson's costs. More importantly, the Executive was deputed to obtain the opinions of three 'eminent' counsel, on the advisability of taking the case to the Appellate Division. Though they strongly advised against this step, notice of intention to appeal was lodged. The five Appeal Court judges unanimously 'refused with costs, the application to proceed further'. In doing so, like the Supreme Court, they laid down the principle 'that criticism does not necessarily mean enmity nor ensure 2 antagonism'. " Undoubtedly Goldsmid had been hurt, emotionally and financially, during the I 2 months oflitigation. Organizations such as the Chevra Kadisha and the Aged Home, where Russian Jews predominated, boycotted the SA]C. The community was also paying a price; legal costs had been substantial, and Goldsmid made a valid comment when he said that the money could have been better spent on suffering Eastern European Jews. He was also right- though perhaps for the wrong reason - when he emphasized the importance of the case to the Jewish community. Today, viewed in tranquillity, it can be seen as a catharsis, sloughing off a good measure of group paranoia in a 78 THE GOLDSMID LIBEL TRIAL transition period. For in considering the tensions exposed within the Jewish community and between individuals and in defining antisemi­ tism as something completely other than justifiable criticism, the courts demonstrated that such tensions and criticisms were normative in any section of the population. Consequently, though disputes between individual Jews did not cease, a disagreement privy to the South African Jewish community as a whole, has rarely come again into the public arena. By I g I 7, the reluctant 'Russians' were beginning to assume an influential role in the community, through a combination of their numerical superiority and their ability to assimilate, and develop into 'British' Jews culturally. Their sons did not need the urging of a Goldsmid to 'do their duty' in the Second World War. In sum, though Goldsmid's wish that 'sweet reasonableness will prevail' has not always been fulfilled, South African Jews are mindful that ultimately 'all Israel arc brethren'.

NOTES 1 South A.frican Jewish Chronicle, 23 November I 9 I7. See also J. A. Poliva, A Short History of the Jewish Press and Literature of South Africa From its Earliest Days Until the Present Time, Prompt Printing, Johannesburg, n.d. 2 SA]C, 22 February I 9 I8. 3 See E. Bradlow, 'Beyond the Ghetto' in Jewish Affairs, Autumn I998. The Rand Daily Mail of I I January I9I8 indicates that Goldsmid was intelligent but had little formal education. 4 See E. Bradlow's 'Immigration into the Union I9IO-I948. Policies and Attitudes. Part 2' in her University of Cape Town Ph.D. thesis, I978. See also G. Saron and L. Hotz, eds., The Jews in South Africa. A History (Oxford University Press, Cape Town, I955). 5 SAJC, 6 9 October I I 6. 6 SAJC, 2 March I9I7. 7 SA]C, 2oApril I9I7. 8 SAJC, I June I9 I 7 and 27 March I 9 I 8and The Star, 22 March I 9 I8. 9 SA]C, I4 September I9I7 and I8January I9I8. 10 SAJC, I9 October I9I 7 and 8 November I9I8. 11 Zionist Record, I5 October I9I5, I4 January I9I6, I5 March I9I6, I4 April I9I6, and I5January I9'7· The South African Jewish Board of Deputies asked for names, ranks, etc., of South African Jews serving, or having served, in Africa or abroad: SAJC, I4 April I9I6, I I August I9I6, and 3 October I9I6. Saron and Hotz, op. cit. in Note 4 above, p. 376, note that a percentage of the Jewish population larger than that of the general population had enlisted. In Morris Alexander. A Biography (Cape Town, I 953, p. 76), E. Alexander indicates (p. 76) that Alexander had also urged the publication ofJewish volunteer numbers. 12 One reason offered by Goldsmid was that many were Yiddish-speakers and would be commanded by English-speaking officers. 13 See SA]C, I 6 February I 9'7: :Jew Baiting'. 79 EDNA BRAD LOW 14 See R. Wistrich, Antisemitism, London, I99I, chapter 9, for similar sentiments expressed in Britain since the I 88os, consequent upon the large influx ofYiddish-speaking immigrants. 15 SA]C, 23 November I9I 7· According to the Rand Daily Mail, I I January I9I8, O'Hara had asked for 'exhortation and not abuse'. 16 SAJC, I6 March, 5 April and 20July I9I7, and I8January I9I8. The Zionist Record of I4 September I9I7 described the agitation as 'outcries raised, for the most part, in irresponsible quarters'. 17 Cape Times, 23 March I9I7. 18 Ibid. 19 SA]C, 3 August and I7 August I9I7 and 23 November I9I7. See also University of Cape Town Libraries, B C I 6o, Alexander Papers, List Ill, 3a, Jewish Statistical Bureau. 20 Quoted in SA]C, 29 November I9I8. 21 SA]C, 23 November, 30 November, and I 4 December I 9I 7· See also The Star, 10 August I9I8. 22 SA]C, I I January and 27 March I9I8; Rand Daily Mail, I I January and I February I9I8; The Star, I5 February, 22 March, and 23 March I9I8, :Johannesburg Civil Court'- that is, Magistrate's Court. 23 See Poliva, op. cit. in Note I above, p. I9. 24 SA]C, 8 February, 22 February, and 27 March I9I8. 25 SAJC, 27 March I9I8. 26 SA]C, 9 August and 29 November I9I8, Bristowe, J. in the Transvaal Supreme Court. See also The Star of I o August I 9 I 8. In his judgement, Bristowe 'quoted extensively' from the SA] C. 27 SAJC, 8 November I9I8. See also L. Schlemmer, 'Future in Jeopardy' in Frontiers of Freedom (fourth quarter, 2000, South African Institute of Race Relations). 28 SAJC, 29 November, 6 December, and I 3 December I 9 I 8. APPENDIX The S. A. Jewish Chronicle,Johannesburg, 29 November I9I8 THE FULL JUDGMENT

AN UNANIMOUS DECISION.- NO JUSTIFICATION FOR ACCUSATION OF ANTI­ SEMTTISM.- MAGISTRATE'S STRONG STRICTURES CONTROVERTED.- WHAT IS ANTI-SEMITISM?- THE COURT'S CONCEPTION.- PLAINTIFF'S CONSISTENT ATTITUDE.- NO MALICE OR VINDICTIVENESS.- DEFINITION OF DISTILLER.­ ''A :\fAN CALLED GOODMAN." -NO PERSONAL ATTACK ON PLAINTIFF. -THE FINDING.

IN THE SUPREME COURT (TRANSVAAL PROVINCIAL DIVISION). Before their Lordships, the Judge President, Justices Bri.rtowe and Curlewis. GOLDSMID vs. VOGELSON. For the Appellant, plaintiff in the Lower Court, Dr. ~1anfred Nathan, instructed by Mr. Edward Nathan. For the Respondent, defendant in the Lower Court, Mr. P. ~1illin, instructed by :Messrs. Marks, Saltman and Gluckman. Bo THE GOLDSMID LIBEL TRIAL The Claim

BRISTO\VE,J.: The judgment I am going to deliver in this case is assented lO by the Judge President and my brother Curlewis, and is therefore the judgment of the Court. This is an action by .Mr. Goldsmid, the Editor of the "South African Jewish Chronicle," against the defendant, who is the Editor of the "Africanjewish \Vorld" for damages for defamation, the alleged defamation being contained in two letters, one in the issue of the "African Jewish \Vorld" of the I Ith October, 1917, headed "Our Own Anti-Semites" and the other in the issue of the ''Africanjewish \Vorld" of the 25th October, headed 'Jevvish and Non:Jewish Anti-Semites." The first is a long letter. It is not necessary to read it all. But I will read the parts relied on in the declaration: "In a recent issue of a local obscure print named "The South African Jewish Chronicle" its editor belched forth with a veritable volcano of abuse against many prominent members of our community. Of course the circulation of that paper seems to he rather poor from the fact that the Commissioner Street Branch of the Central News Agency, who are the publishers, are only selling four copies a week. Nor does the reputation of the editor appear to exceed the circulation of his print in view of the fact that on the goth May last when he came to a meeting of the Executive and Collectors of the Jewish \Var Victims' Fund to take a report of the proceedings for publication in his paper he was "chucked out" of it, without anyone of the eighty ladies and gentlemen present saying a word in his favour. I am addressing myself to you anent this man and his print because of his infiamatory writings and dangerous agitations against Russianje\vs and others of which they should be duly warned." And then at the end of the article he uses these words: "Is there really nothing at all to be done to save us from the very worst of our enemies -our own anti-Semitcs?" The innuendo on that is that it amounts to an allegation that the plaintiff as editor of the "South African Chronicle" is anti-Scmitic, or, as it is expressed, an enemy of the Jewish community, and also that he is a person of bad reputation. The second letter also I need not read entirely, although I will read the part referred to in the declaration: "I contend that if there is any dirt to clean, we must first do it from our own threshold. To mention merely the name of the "S.A. Jewish Chronicle" is to prove that we have in our 0\Vn midst a journal, thoughJcwish, yet most malignant to the IocalJev·.'ish population. Indeed, .Mr. Goldsmid ought to feel no shame when he compares his own sentiments with those expressed by Mr. Pemberton, p·articularly \vhen speaking of Russian Jews." The innuendo placed on that is that it is an insinuation that the plaintiff is anti-Semitic.

The Plea of}ustification There arc a number of pleas, but the only one which need be mentioned is justification; and the plea of justification is based on a number of articles which appeared in the ;'South African Jewish Chronicle" of which I think four are the most important, and the only ones to which it is necessary to refer. The first is an article of the r6th ~Jarch, I g '7, headed "The Call to the Jew"; the second is an article in the issue of the sth April headed 'Jewish Recruits-Stupid Step Suggested"; the third is some paragraphs under the heading "\Vhispers" in the issue of the 8thJune, and the fourth is a portion of an article entitled "\Ve Speak Out" in the issue of the I 4th September. It was held by the :Magistrate that justification was proved and he dismissed the action. He uses rather strong language with regard to the diflhent articles, and referring to the article "The Call to the Jew" (the intention of which I may mention was to stigmatize the Russian Jews as not having responded to the recruiting campaign) he says "The effect of the article was to convey the impression that the Russian Jews were failing to correspond to the call as they should, and through cowardice on their pan. At the time there was a feeling against the Russian SI EDNA BRADLOW Jews on the Rand and this feeling was accentuated by the article which endangered the life and property of the Russian Jews along the Reef. Plaintiff was well aware of the feeling, and in his paper in the same issue he had actually warned his readers of the existence of men "ready to loot" on the pretext of patriotism." And then he goes on to say: "Plaintiff had made no proper enquiry into the extent to which the Russian Jew had volunteered, had not sought for or obtained any official statistics in the matter and had levied his charge of cowardice and failure of duty \Vithout cause and recklessly and maliciously." Then he also says with regard to the other articles, "The plaintiff had wantonly, maliciously, and without good grounds abused prominent members of the Jewish community, and adversely and falsely criticised the administration of the Relief Fund." And he adds: "I attributed plaintiff's malicious criticism of the administration of the \Var Fund to professional jealousy and mercenary motives, and personal spite and vindictiveness." And he further says: "the attitude adopted by plaintiff towards the Fund and its administration, his personal attacks on individualjewish leaders, and his condemnation ofRussianjews as slackers and cowards, was anti·Semitic and justified his being designated an "anti­ Semitc, having regard to existing circumstances and conditions along the Reef".

The 1\rleaning qfr'Anti-Semitism" The plaintiff appeals on two grounds - first, that there was no justification for stigmatizing him as anti-Semitic, and, secondly, that there was no justification for the alleged attack on his personal reputation. The chief question argued was the question of anti·Semitism and it is to that I propose mainly to address myself. There is the evidence of several witnesses as to what is understood by the expression "anti· semi tic." That evidence no doubt represents the views of those particular persons. But "anti-semitic" is not a scientific or technical word; it is an English word and must bear its ordinary meaning. The Court cannot therefore be guided by the witnesses as to what "anti·semitic" means, or assume that the readers of the letters in question understood it in any other than what seems to us to be its natural sense; which I think may be said to be something like this- to attack Jews on the ground of race or religion or to maliciously ascribe to them racial or religious characteristics calculated to hold them up to derision and contempt. I can quite understand that to stigmatize a Jew as anti·Semitic in this sense might be defamatory. But it would be wrong for the Court to sanction the idea that a man can be called anti·Semitic because he criticises a Jewish fund or a section or some prominent members of the Jewish community.Jews must submit to criticism from inside as well as outside their own community like any other portion of the population; even though at times that criticism may be unfair or exaggerated or even untrue. If it is exaggerated, untrue or unfair the ordinal)' remedies are open. But the Court will not sanction the view that, because a man criticises a Jewish fund or ajewish business or a section of the Jewish community, he is therefore to be stigmatized as an enemy of the Jewish race.

17ze ,Magistrate Wrong I propose to deal with the articles which are said to sho\v that the plaintiff was anti· Semitic from that point of vie\v. I will take first "The Call to the Jew." This is an article in which the editor of the "South African Jewish Chronicle" alleges that the Russianjews have not done their duty in going to the front. He alleges that the Jews as a whole have done their duty, but the Russian Jews have held back. I do not think I need read the article, but the writer does make what may be said to be an accusation of cowardice. He says "Let them say outright "I am afraid" and they will be believed; but to urge that because a country which has been step-motherly to 82 THE GOLDSMID LIBEL TRIAL them is allied with a country which has been more than a mother to them as an excuse for refraining from doing their duty shows a cowardice that is worthy of the greatest condemnation. \Vejews have in the past centuries been considered a martial race and the successes we have achieved during the present campaign and which even in this country we obtained during the Bocr war prove conclusively that the spirit of Judas Maccabeus and his gallant brethren has not entirely evaporated during the passage of the ages." The first remark I have to make with regard to that article is that it is obviously not an attack on the Jews as a whole; it is an attack upon a particular section of the Jews who were supposed to have refrained from doing their duty to the country because of events which had happened in Russia. So far from being an attack on Jews as a whole it states that the Jews as a whole have done their duty, but the Russian Jews have not done theirs, so that it only applies to a section of the Jews, though no doubt, in Johannesburg, a large section. Then it was said that the article was vindictive and malicious, and the :rvlagistrate, as I have said, says it is malicious and made without proper inquiry. I am totally unable to agree with the .Magistrate in that view. The evidence shows that the article was written because the plaintiff was asked to write it by the then Mayor ofJohannesburg acting on behalf of the Recruiting Committee, and he wrote the article in deference to their views.

Not Vindictive nor Afalicious. I cannot see why the plaintiff should be criticised because he made no further inquiry. The Recruiting Committee were the persons most likely to know the facts. They were in the best position to know. And the plaintiff accepted their views. \Vhether these vievvs were right or wrong it is going a great deal too far to accuse the plaintiff of being vindictive and malicious because he accepted the views of the Recruiting Committee without independent investigation.

"That is Untrue!" Then it is said that he is shown to have been vindictive because he never criticised the Russianjews before this article. That is untrue. \Ve have before us articles in the 'South African Jewish Chronicle'' in which he had previously criticised Russianjews on exactly the same ground. I refer to articles in the issues of the 6th October 1916, 16th :February and 2nd March 19 q. It may be said with regard to the article "The Call to the Jew" that it imputes cowardice, which went beyond what the l\1ayor intended. In that respect it may have exceeded the wishes of the Recruiting Committee. But I do not think that that establishes malice or vindictiveness. In my opinion the article certainly is not anti Semitic in the sense I have given to the word. It does not show any bitterness against the Jewish race as a whole, and it does not contain anything which goes beyond fair and bona fide criticism.

No Attack on the Community.

Now I come to the other articles. The article of the 5th April I 9 I 7, is called "Stupid Step Suggested". There is little- very little in that article. It appears to have been suggested that a mass meeting of Jews should be held at the \Vanderers for the purpose of augmenting recruiting, and the plaintiff criticised that as a stupid step. Among other things he says: "After all it must not be forgotten that not a few of the most prominent of our so-called leaders hail from portions of the Central Empires and it would be certainly ridiculous to hear addresses delivered by gentlemen who had their origin in Posen, were born in Bavaria or own Austria as the country of their EDNA BRADLOW birth." That may be an unfair thing to say. As a matter of fact, it is an unfair thing. There is no reason to suppose that the gentlemen referred to were not perfectly loyal. It was unfair but it was only an attack on particular individuals.

Definition of Distiller. Next come the paragraphs under the head of"\Vhispers." It was argued that the first group of paragraphs to which our attention \Vas called constitutes an attack on certain Jewish persons who had obtained notoriety and affiucnce through the Jewish \Var Victims Fund. There is nothing to support that The language is quite general. But there arc some paragraphs which certainly do relate to that Fund. They are these: "That the Jewish \Var Relief Committee provides an excellent forcing ground"; "That from anti-Scmitic newspapers correspondent to political parasite is one step"; "That the next is to the presidency of a friendly society"; "That finally, membership of a relief committee affords importance"; "That the next step is to traduce one's betters". There had been a meeting of the Executive and Collectors of the Jewish War Victims Fund on the 3oth May to which the plaintiffhad been invited as the editor of the "South Africanjewish Chronicle". \Vhen he entered the meeting he found that they were discussing his article 'The Call to the Jew"; and a resolution \Vas proposed by a man called Distiller and seconded by somebody else that he should be removed from the meeting. That aroused his indignation. He was invited to the meeting and when he came he vvas turned out. Distiller was a tradesman who obtained notoriety because of his activity in connection with the \Var Victims Fund; and it was to him and to this incident that the paragraphs referred. It was therefore merely an attack on Distiller and I do not think it can possibly be stigmatized as anti­ semitic.

No Doubt in Judges' .~Hinds. The same observation applies to the last article entitled "\Ve Speak Out". At the time when that article was written a newspaper had been established by some Jewish leaders already referred to in opposition to the plaintiff's newspaper. There had previously been in existence a newspaper published in Yiddish and called in Yiddish "The African Jev,rish \Vorld." The title \Vas altered to the English title of the same name. The paper was preceded by several pages written in English and a new series was commenced. There is not the slightest doubt, on the evidence, that that periodical was started in opposition to "The South African Jewish Chronicle". And the plaintiff launched an attack against "The African Jewish \Vorld" and its editor, and the attack included a suggestion that the editor of"The African Jewish \Vorld" was making money out oftheje,vish \Var Victims Fund. He says "It is also interesting to note and worthy of comment that one of the principal means of revenue of the "Afrikaner" alias the "S.A. Je,vish \'\'orld", of which he is the co-editor, is the publication of paragraphs relating to collections made at weddings, brismelahs, barmitzvahs and other functions towards the Fund of which he is the salaried secretary. This, despite the fact that we have in the past offered, and still to-day offer, to publish all such paragraphs relating to such collections gratis in these columns, provided only that the nett amount of the sums obtained be handed over to the Fund and no portion thereof is dissipated in the direction of subsidising those newspaper harpies who batten on the vicissitudes of their fellow men". The facts have now been explained and it turns out that the charge is unfounded; money was not being made out of the Jewish \Var Victims Fund, nor was any money given which could reasonably have been expected to find its way into that Fund. The statement is THE GOLDSMID LIBEL TRIAL unfounded, but it is a mere attack on the editor of the "South African Jewish \Vorld''. It is not anti-Scmitic.

':4 1Han Called Goodman." Stress has been laid on the evidence of a man called Goodman as to personal feeling on the part of the plaintiff. The conversation referred to by Goodman took place after the plaintiff's expulsion from the meeting and after the opposition newspaper had been started. At that time there certainly was angry feeling. But I do not think that, although the conversation as recorded seems to show some feeling against the Russian Jews, that can be taken as establi')hing that "The Call to the Jew" was dictated by malice. The evidence on the facts is entirely the other \Vay; and I do not think the evidence of Goodman is sufficent to displace it. No doubt the subsequent anicles \Vere written when the plaintiff was feeling aggrieved and sore, but by no process can they be interpreted as anything except attacks on particular individuals. The "Call to the Jew" is the only article which can be said to attack even a considerable section ofJews.

Purely a Prrifessional Attack. Then there is the other question as to defamation of the plaintiff's personal reputation. Some points were argued in regard to that, but I do not think it is necessary to deal with them. The Court is not satisfied that the innuendo on that part of the case is justified. The innuendo was that there was a personal attack on the plaintiff, and the court is not satisfied that it is anything more than an attack on the plaintiff as editor. There is no reason, therefore, for disturbing the finding of the :rvlagistrate on this part of the case. But on the other I think the finding of the Magistrate was \Vrong. I think the letters were defamatory and I think the plea of justification fails. The result is that the plaintiff is entitled to damages. After considering the matter we are satisfied that justice will be done if we award £5· The appeal is allowed with costs and the judgment of the :Magistrate's Court is altered to judgment for the plaintiff for £5 with costs in this Court and the Court below.

ss THE KIBBUTZ: COMINGS AND GOINGS Harold Pollins (Review Article)

YOSSI KATZ, The Religious Kibbutz 1Vfovement in the Land of Israel I9J0-1.948 (first published in Hebrew in 1996), 358 pp., Bar-Ilan University Press, Ramat-Gan and The Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 1999, $35.00. NAAMA SABAR, Kibbutzniks in the Diaspora (SUNY Series in Israeli Studies), 189 pp., State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2000, $16.95 (paperback). he se two books centre on the kibbutz and kibbutniks but are distinguished by time and theme. Yossi Katz's volume deals T with his special interest, the pre-State history of Jewish settlement in Palestine. (This is his ninth book on the subject.) Specifically- apart from a longish chapter on the 1920s and the early 1930s - he concentrates on the years 1935-1948, the 'Turbulent Period' in settlement history, which began approximately with 'the outbreak of the Arab Revolt, in the spring of 1936, and ended during Israel's War oflndependence' (p. 10). N aama Sabar examines the other end of the spectrum, in a more recent period, and concentrates on those who left the kibbutz to live in Los Angeles. Both authors, to a large extent, engage with their own academic subject. Thus Katz's work, while clearly focused on a particular historical period, reflects his academic field as Professor of Geography at Bar-Ilan University; one of his book's main features is an analysis of the reasons why the nine religious kibbutzim came to be located where they were and in three blocs. Naama Sabar is Associate Professor of Education at Tel Aviv University and in her search for explanations why people born and brought up on a kibbutz should leave it, she aims to see if the education (broadly defined) which they received at the kibbutz might have been a causal factor. The statistics of the religious kibbutz movement are these: in 1948, after some 13 years, 1o of its 15 kvutzot (groups) were settled in three blocs: three kibbutzim in the Bet She' an Valley, three in the Etziyon bloc, and three in the southern bloc. The tenth was to be the first of a

The]ewish}oumalq[Sociology, vol. 43, nos. I and 2, 2001. 86 THE KIBBUTZ: cm.IINGS AND GOINGS fourth bloc. They amounted to about 6.5 per cent of the kibbutzim which existed during the British Mandate. Although this is, in a sense, a geographical study, it is in reality a political one. Neither Hakibbutz Hadati (the Religious Kibbutz Movement) or its parent body - Hapoel Hamizrahi - nor the members of the individual proposed kibbutzim had the autonomous power to decide where to establish their kibbutz. The land, of course, had to be available- so the Jewish National Fund which was buying the land, was an important actor. The Jewish Agency was involved, notably its Political, Settlement and Treasury Departments. And the religious kibbutzim were settled in blocs near to the kibbutzim of other parts of the kibbutz movement. Moreover, the period discussed was significant as the final years of the British Mandate and the government's changing policy in Palestine were important factors in influencing settlement. There was the possibility of partition following the Woodhead Commission's pro­ posals of I 938 and then the restriction on land purchases following the White Paper of I 939· Thus to prepare for partition, some settlements were established in various parts of the country in order to lay claims for inclusion in any future Jewish area. Chapters 2 to 5 - covering about half the book - deal with the details of the establishment of the kibbutzim. Professor Katz has examined what must amount to all the available archives and he is not afraid to acknowledge where the information is not available; it will not be necessary for the research to be done again. But it must be said that the amount of detail he deploys does not make for easy reading. One can readily get lost in the various machinations of committees and the various individuals and organizations which had a part in the making of decisions. Only occasionally do these descriptions come to life. One example is during his discussion of the question of establishing a kibbutz at Yavneh close to a proposed yeshivah: 'Fears were expressed that the yeshivah would attempt to exert an undesirable conservative social influence . . . Generally, Religious Kibbutz Movement members were inimical to the world of the yeshivot, from which they had grown and against which they had rebelled' (p. I 77). However, the final two chapters and the Epilogue are more general and the author steps back somewhat to evaluate the topic. He discusses, for example, why the various religious kibbutzim did not realize their aim to co-operate with each other. On the other hand, one would have liked to know more about some matters merely mentioned here. Because of the author's concentration on settlement, he does not say much about the movement's ideology, especially the role of religion. Thus he examines the growth of regional integration of the kibbutzim of the various kibbutz movements and goes forward to a resolution of the religious affairs committee of the Religious 87 HAROLD POLLINS

Kibbutz Movement in I 954: 'the committee supports in principle the participation of our kibbutzim in joint enterprises of the kibbutzim in their regions, and with other economic institutions, to the extent that such cooperation has economic or public importance, or to the extent that this cooperation will prevent Sabbath desecration and other irifringements cif commandments and precepts' (p. 326). 1 And he continues that the Movement was opposed to the notion that Jewish halakha was inconsistent with 'making one's living from modern agriculture in the Land of Israel' (p. 327 ). The intention, he says, was to look for solutions and there were many 'painful deliberations' on such matters as milking on the Sabbath, forbidden mixtures, and observance of the sabbatical year. It is a pity that he does not go into such solutions. Naama Sabar's shorter work is certainly an easier read. Her raw material consists primarily of a series of in-depth interviews conducted in Los Angeles in I g88 and I g8g with 26 former kibbutz members aged between 26 and 40 who had been born and brought up on kibbutzim. In addition she held informal interviews with 20 other kibbutzniks. The author is careful about her methodology (Appendix A is on 'The Research Methodology'). There is much verbatim reporting of her interviews but she is keen to step back to analyse her material as she proceeds. There are appropriate references to publications on migration and there is an extensive bibliography. Emigration from Israel,yeridah (literally, 'going down') is the opposite of aliyah (literally, 'going up'). Yeridah has a pejorative context: it was regarded as desertion; leaving the kibbutz as well as the country compounded the sin. Such a feeling is an essential feature of the discussion about the emigrants and helps to explain some features of their life in America. Much of what she has to say is familiar in studies of migration and settlement. She discusses the reasons for migration, especially import­ ant in this context since those who left their kibbutzim have been regarded with much disfavour. She examines the existence and persistence of an ex-kibbutz community in Los Angeles; her non­ random sample was built up, pyramid-style, through contacts from one person to another in the loose-knit community. Like other migrant groups they tend to associate with other ex-kibbutzniks for social relationships, mutual support, and economic relationships. Thus 35- year-old Shai ~ who had started in business in Los Angeles I o years earlier~ is reported, in the first interview in the book, as having I 5 kibbutzniks among the 40 Israelis in his staff of I 50 employees. His business is selling home renovations by telemarketing. He and his wife are doing very well economically but, and such notions are common in the book, his wife Yael expressed envy of a couple who were returning to Israel. 'She would go back gladly, even to live in a poor neighborhood in Israel'. Similarly, although Shai had no religious 88 THE KIBBUTZ: COMINGS AND GOINGS t upbringing he and Yael 'were planning a lavish ceremony at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem to celebrate their son's bar mitzvah, as befits an American Jew' (p. 34). The author categorises Shai's family as 'The Contented'. A second group, 'The Amerisraelis', wish to combine their two worlds; she says of one of them: 'He talks about a dream he shares with many ~ kibbutzniks in his situation - to live in Israel and make his living in the United States' (p. 46). A third group, 'The Searchers', are uncertain about continuing to stay in America and ambivalent about returning to Israel. And finally there are 'The Discontented'; as the name suggests, they find life in Los Angeles unsatisfactory but are not ' in a position easily to resolve their problems. These categories are interesting but she does not make a great deal of use of them. Rather I she tends to generalise about the whole group, notably about their feelings towards Israel. Perhaps the core of the study is to be found in i 2 Part Three, 'Permanent Temporariness' . This is by no means a unique description of many emigrants, those 'sojourners' whose minds 'are directed towards their homeland' (p. 86). This is so despite the 'push' factors in their emigration. For what is special about these migrants is that their reasons for leaving did not include fleeing from ' a regime or from persecution nor did they sell their homes (they had I none). 'Therefore, they do not have the feeling that they have nowhere to return to, which is the lot of refugees, or those who flee because of bankruptcy or problems with income tax' (p. 86). It is not surprising then that they maintain links with their kibbutzim and believe that they would be well received if they were to return. I The kibbutz will always be there, so there is no pressure of time, and Israel is there, waiting for them. They thus feel more secure than many other migrants do. Presumably this applies even to 'The Discontented'. In a short Part Five the author summarises her main conclusions, in answer to her themes- Why did they emigrate from Israel? How do they cope with their identity as immigrants? Why do they remain in Los Angeles? The reasons for emigration include their upbringing as children. Parent-child relationships 'mainly were either cold or suffocatingly warm' (p. 139) and the distance from parents was emphasized by the structure of kibbutz society - for example, the small involvement of parents with the education of their children, the lack of privacy, and the pervasive uniformity. Because of the insularity of the kibbutz arid the absence of interaction with Israeli society, any dissatisfactions they felt about the kibbutz tended to be projected on Israel as a whole. Thus, when they decided to leave the kibbutz there was no problem for them also to leave Israel. Many references to education, her major academic interest, are scattered throughout the book but she also has one chapter specifically on 'The Kibbutz Educational System' (pp. 127-133). Generally she 8g HAROLD POLLINS refers to its low standards and the absence of motivation to study. Until recently the kibbutz 'viewed education as a factor in the creation of social classes and as a reason for members to leave the kibbutz'. Paradoxically, the recent trend in kibbutzim towards encouraging the obtaining of the matriculation certificate 'may have the effect of ~ reducing the tendency of young men and women from the kibbutz to ~ seek their future outside of Israel' (p. I32). However, she does not pursue the reasons for this. Few of the interviewees had completed matriculation and for 'many of the interviewees, their school years now seem to be a missed opportunity as far as fulfilling their personal potential was concerned' (p. I 3 I). Indeed, the absence of higher education and a profession were a hindrance to their returning to Israel and explained why, in America, they had perforce to enter business. Among other reasons for remaining in Los Angeles are the existence of their social network as well as the availability of employment. In the latter case she shows that their kibbutz education (despite the drawbacks mentioned above) has been an advantage: 'Their experience at a variety of jobs, particularly in the technical field, their ability to work on a team, their perseverance, diligence, modest demands, and capability to postpone gratification- all of these enhance their chances of earning a decent living very soon after their arrival in the country, and for them this is one more factor pulling them to settle in the United States' (pp. I4I-42). As to identity, they still retain close links with Israel but in America they have for the first time discovered their links to Judaism, from which they were estranged at home (although those from religious kibbutzim tend to loosen their connection). One aspect is that these religious links mitigate the adverse and contradictory feelings about yeridah. But equally important, perhaps more so, in their 'unique model' of adaptation is their informal social network, 'characterized by multiple, intense substantial personal links based on friendship, interdependence, and mutual background, rather than the official organizations which characterize other immigrant groups in the United States' (p. 143). They have created an 'island of estrangement'. At the same time there is a marvellous irony in her assessment of their adaptation. 'The principles of kibbutz education intended to prepare them for a life of labor and togetherness on the kibbutz paradoxically had a contrary effect. The principles and ideas of the kibbutz they left, which they did not fulfil!, are what support and help them most in the United States. These principles make it easier for them to remain in "Kibbutz L.A."- as if it were a kibbutz in the Diaspora' (p. I43)· The two books reviewed here cover very different aspects of the subject and their style and methodology are dissimilar. The first could have been enlivened perhaps by a few pen-portraits of some of the go THE KIBBUTZ: COMINGS AND GOINGS people mentioned in it. But both are useful and important contribu­ tions to the study of the kibbutz, the one discussing an era in their creation, the other an aspect of their decline.

NOTES 1 Italics in original. 2 There are similarities with the arguments in two articles on Israelis in Canada, both in the same issue of The Jewish Journal of Sociology, vol. 38, no. r, June rgg6: Ruth Linn and Nurit Barkan-Ascher, 'Permanent Impermanence: Israeli Expatriates in Non-Event Transition' and Rina Cohen and Gerald Gold, 'Israelis in Toronto: The Myth of Return and the Development of a Distinct Ethnic Community'.

gr BOOK REVIEWS

ASH ER CO HEN and BERNARD SUSSER, Israel and the Politics oj)ewish Identity: The Secular-Religious Impasse, xiv + 167 pp.,Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 2000, n.p. The principal aim of the pioneers of Israel was to create a 'normal' society, with the same social structure, achievements, and faults as any other. To a considerable extent they succeeded, albeit in the particular context of the only Jewish nation, with a peculiar and unique history. Yet the founding fathers of the State surely underesti­ mated the propensity oflsraeli society, post-independence, to internal division and cleavages (just as, arguably, they underestimated the force of both Arab nationalism and Arab hostility to the Jewish State per se). Fierce internal divisions and hostility among the Jewish people is nothing new, and the deeply-contested Jewish politics of inter-war Poland, with its tripartite division into Bundists-Zionists-Orthodox, might have served as a warning of what was likely to be in store: the internal divisions within Israeli society (especially after the death of David Ben-Gurion and the other founders of the State) and above all the divisions between secular and religious Israelis for control of the legal and other institutions oflsraeli society. These divisions have been recounted in many books, but seldom as well as in Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity, an extremely lively, well-written, and up-to-date study by two political scientists at Bar­ Ban University. Their university affiliation is significant, for Bar-Ilan is Israel's Orthodox-oriented university, and their work is distingu­ ished by its fairness to the Orthodox religious position - it should be stressed, fairness to this position, not bias in its favour- which is in refreshing contrast to the position of thorough-going hostility in many such studies. The authors recount, in an excellent manner with an almost total absence of academic jargon (their use of the term 'anticonsociational' [sic] to describe recent trends being an exception), the efforts to reach accommodation between the two camps which have been attempted since the foundation of the State. They are extremely pessimistic about the chances of satisfactory accommoda­ tion, contending instead that (p. xiv) 'the secular-religious cleft in religious Israeli society today finds itself in a new and perilous phase ... No longer do secular and religious Jews attempt to mediate their differences and moderate potential conflicts through an elaborate BOOK REVIEWS system of concessions, mutual deference, and demarcated spheres of autonomy. They are, at present, playing to win'. A number of factors have been responsible for this change, especially the demographic growth in Haredi numbers and a seeming breakdown in secular political leadership and skills, factors which have been aggravated by attempts at securing peace with the Arabs, by the heavy immigration of Russian Jews, and by the increasingly cynical attitude of many Israelis (and DiasporaJews) towards any kind of Zionist idealism. Not everything by any means has gone the Haredim's way in recent years. The authors interestingly highlight the effects of the vastly more diverse media outlets available to most Israelis today, compared with even 20 years ago (when there was only one television station and a government monopoly of the broadcast media) with 65 per cent oflsraeli households now subscribing to cable television offering 40 channels and many 'pirate' stations. This explosion in media diversity has affected even religious households, many of which (despite prohibitions by their leaders) are keen media­ viewers. Moreover, the Israeli media (as in much of the Diaspora) ' focus on investigative journalism which by definition seeks to expose scandal. Yet by and large the Haredim have revealed themselves to be masters at playing Israel's curious, unsatisfactory political system, warding off all attempts to curb their powers and privileges. For instance, Ehud Barak's attempts to remove the draft exemptions given I to yeshivah students came to nothing and were cited by much of the press (after the publication of Israel and the Politics qf]ewish Identity) as a major factor in his decisive defeat by Ariel Sharon in February 200 I. The authors are convinced that 'for the religious communities, the official introduction of religious pluralism ... would not just be a setback; it would constitute an intolerable blow to the identity of the Israeli Jewish collective' (p. I35); they also note that a successful peace treaty with the Palestinians entailing the end of the West Bank settlements would be condemned by 'many in the religious camp' as 'intolerable', even 'treason in the literal sense of the word' (p. I 37). One wonders if this is not far too pessimistic; doubtless many religious Jews would react like this, but they surely would accommodate themselves to the new reality, as they have always done in the past. Much of the response would depend on the quality oflsrael's political leadership. There is, admittedly, little in recent experience to give grounds for optimism, but the wave of revulsion which has swept the country since Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in I 995 at least suggests that the worst expectations will not be realized. WILLIAM D. RUBINSTEIN

93 BOOK REVIEWS ~

ANNE J. KERSHEN, ed., Language, Labour and 1\1igration, xii + 255 pp., ~ Ashgate, Aldershot, Burlington USA, Singapore, and Sydney, ~ 2000, £42.50. The editor is Director of the Centre for the Study of Migration at ~ Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. The , Centre was established in I 994 and this volume is based on papers, along with some specially-commissioned essays, which were delivered at the third conference held under the Centre's auspices. The two earlier ones also led to books edited by Anne]. Kershen: London the Promised Land? The Migrant Experience in a Capital City, I 997, and A Qjiestion ifidentity, 1998. The College is, appropriately, in East London • which has always been a major centre for immigrants to Britain and it • is adjacent to the site of the earliest post-medievalJewish cemetery in Britain, that of the Sephardim, established in the seventeenth century. The book is divided into two Parts: 'Language' and 'Labour'. 'Language' refers here to the ability of immigrants to communicate l with the receiving society. One of the contributors, Alice Bloch, notes: 'The acquisition of host society language skills has been identified as the first stage in the acculturation process, as it enables new migrants to gain access to social and economic institutions within the host I society' (p. 197). Without such skills they would be isolated. Similarly, having a job can help immigrants to settle but, as the editor states, 'levels and availability of immigrant employment will be reliant upon the economic barometer, contemporary labour requirements and the influence of racism and negative stereotyping' (p. I). She supplies the first chapter on language: 'Mother Tongue as a Bridge to Assimilation? Yiddish and Sylheti in East London'. It 'sets out to examine the ways in which two immigrant groups, who occupied the same space, though at different times, have reacted to the problems of majority language deficiency' (p. I I). The 'space' is Spitalfields in the East End and the two groups are the Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews who arrived in the late nineteenth century and the Bangladeshis (specific- ally those from Sylhet) who came in more recent decades. Despite the similarities in the experiences of the two groups there is a major difference. The attitude towards the Jews, notably on the part of the j existing anglicized Jewish community, was that the immigrants and their children should get rid of Yiddish as quickly as possible. An important feature of Bangladeshi history was their recent, successful, fight for nationhood in which language had been a major issue. When what is now Bangladesh was East Pakistan, from r 94 7 to I97I, the official language for the whole of Pakistan was Urdu. After the civil war and independence for Bangladesh, Bengali was pro­ claimed the official language. Thus, in the East End of London, 'the Bangladeshi community and its leaders were determined to retain 94 BOOK REVIEWS their cultural, and newly acquired national identity and transmit this to their children- some British born' (p. 23) but it was to be done through the Bengali language. This difference from the Jewish immigrant experience was bolstered by the provision of local author­ ity-sponsored 'mother tongue' classes. '\Vhat was denied by the Anglo­ Jewish establishment of the I 88os was now accepted by communal activists and local government officials in the I 98os; mother tongue was an essential element of the education process for children from minority backgrounds, both as a means of retaining their ethnic cultural identity and as a vehicle for fluency in the language of the majority society' (p. 24). Of course the obvious question is: how can the existence (and even encouragement) of a mother tongue among immigrants assist assimilation into the majority culture? It was and is probably less relevant for first-generation women immigrants who worked either at home or within the immigrant community and had less need to learn English. Anne Kershen's evidence in support of her thesis that Yiddish was a bridge for assimilation to British society comes mainly from her researches into the history of trade unionism among the Jewish tailors and into the Yiddish press, from the I 88os to I 9 I 4· The argument appears to be that the left-wing Yiddish papers gave much information on current British political events (the I 884 Reform Act, for example), and encouraged collaboration between Jewish and British trade unionists. Moreover, 'Announcements of trade union activities, strikes and meetings whilst still appearing in Hebrew now carried translitera­ tions of words such as "strike", "secretary" as well as those of the names of institutions, organisations and streets which played import­ ant roles in the life of the immigrant community' (p. I g). One notices the same method in some of the trade-union rule books where words for 'rules', 'office', and 'registered' are given in Hebrew characters. It is an interesting and plausible suggestion and the idea of the usefulness of a mother tongue fits agreeably with current notions of multiculturalism. Yet while a majority of first-generation Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe were engaged in the clothing industry, one wonders if those considerations apply to those who worked and lived almost entirely within the Jewish community. I suppose that although Yiddish certainly declined fairly rapidly in Britain a case could presumably be made out that assimilation to British cultural mores was retarded by such persistence of Yiddish as there was. The next essay in the book, by Tony Kushner, "'Do Not Give Flowers to a Man". Refugees, Language and Power in Twentieth Century Britain', is also concerned with Jews (as well as with other groups of refugees). The quotation in the title comes from a I997 publication advising young refugees in Britain how to behave towards 95 BOOK REVIEWS British people. There is reference to a similar pamphlet issued by the German Jewish Aid Committee to refugees from Nazism in the late I ggos, While You are in Britain. The title is indicative of attitudes towards them (they were expected not to stay) and the author generalizes about the historic treatment of refugees in Britain in the last century or so -mainly one of animosity. Yet he also recognizes that they have been 'defended as deserving recipients of an immutable right to asylum in Britain by their supporters' (p. 42 ). His main point, using the experience of many groups of refugees in Britain, is their desire to maintain their own culture while at the same time acquiring English in order to assimilate, in some sense, into British society. He relates this to a general theme of their poor treatment, bringing the story up to date. In 2000 a Conservative Party spokesman commented on the employment in the National Health Service of doctors from abroad whose command of English was such that communication between them and patients could be misunderstood and therefore dangerous. The chapter by Veronica L.C. White, 'Health Advocacy in Medicine', also looks at this communication question and she writes: 'Many hospitals and health authorities are now trying to provide interpreters, translators, Linkworkers or Health Advocates to bridge this language gap' (p. 74). She gives the results of research into the Health Advocacy service established in the early I ggos at the Royal London Hospital (in East London). On the whole the system appears to be working well. The two other language essays are based on the Irish in Britain and the Welsh language on the Internet. The title of Bronwen Waiter's chapter, ' "Shamrocks Growing out of their Mouths": Language and Racialisation of the Irish in Britain', indicates its scope. As with the other language essays, there are elements of ambiguity: on the one hand their voices (accents) 'label Irish people as "outsiders" in Britain' (p. 59); on the other, 'recently Irish accents have moved higher up the preference scale' (p. 57) partly through the large numbers of Irish presenters on British television. The chapter includes examples of verbal harassment as well as of physical attacks on people with Irish accents in various parts of the country. Such anti-Irish prejudice has a long history but the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland in the last three decades have exacerbated it. A discussion of the meaning of 'diaspora' is at the heart of Wayne Parson's. 'Becoming a Diaspora: the Welsh Experience from Beulah Land to Cyber-Cymru'. Here it refers to the desire of a dispersed group, even one greatly assimilated into another culture - like the Welsh in the USA- nevertheless to retain and even to renew its sense of group identity. This is being facilitated by modern technology, the use of the Internet by (especially) Welsh-Americans notably using the g6 BOOK REVIEWS Welsh language as a means of communication as well as through linking local Welsh societies in various American cities. This is the first academic essay I have seen in which most of the references are to Internet sites. While the Language chapters are mainly on current issues, three of those on Labour are historical. Ian Duffield in, ' "I Asked How the Vessel Could Go": the Contradictory Experiences of African and African Diaspora Mariners and Port Workers in Britain, c. r 7 so­ l 850', does two things. First, he shows that the number of black sailors and port workers in that period was not negligible and, second, that they were able to press for greater freedom for themselves and other blacks. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century there were large numbers oflndians ('lascars') manning British ships; Shompa Lahiri, in 'Patterns of Resistance: Indian Seamen in Imperial Britain', contrasts 'the public image of the docile and pliant lascar' with 'the private reality of resistance to missionaries, who attempted to penetrate lascar belief systems' (pp. I 74-7 5). The third historical chapter is by Paul Bailey, 'From Shandong to the Somme: Chinese Indentured Labour in France During World War I'. This tells of the men recruited to do heavy work for the armies of Britain and France. Those recruited by Britain were sent back to China immediately after the war, while some of those who worked for France remained in that country. It was a particular and temporary episode and clearly does not readily chime with the discussion in the other chapters of more permanent residents of foreign birth. Incidentally, as well as a Chinese Labour Corps used by the British there was a Russian Labour Corps in France which was composed to a considerable extent ofRussian-bornjews living in Britain. A study of their experiences would be very useful. Two final Labour chapters are on present-day British experience. Alice Bloch, 'It's Not Working: Refugee Employment and Urban Regeneration', centres on the London Borough of Newham, an area with an above-average unemployment rate (at 15.4 per cent); about nine per cent of its inhabitants are refugees who have very high levels of unemployment. Bangladeshis are the highest at more than 40 per cent, Black Africans almost as high, and Pakistanis at 35 per cent. Nevertheless there is evidence of upward mobility especially among East African Asians who arrived well qualified and with good English­ language skills. The chapter describes and analyses efforts to provide English-language classes and vocational training as well as attempts to regenerate the local economy. The conclusion is somewhat depressing: training is for low-level jobs, usually lower than the skills they had on arrival. Indeed, 'The skills and experiences that refugees bring with them remain largely unused in a locality where there is a 97 BOOK REVIEWS skills gap between the needs of the local economy and the skills that many of the population are able to offer' (p. 2 I 8). The last chapter is by Mahmood Messkoub, 'Are the UK's Ethnic Minorities at a Disadvantage When They Get Older?'. In this macro­ study the author provides details of, inter alia, the age structure of the different groups. As expected, the minority groups are generally younger than the whites although those from the Caribbean are closer to the age range of the white population. While the causes of poverty in old age are similar for all groups, caused by 'low pay, and low skill and social class background earlier in life' (p. 243), the ethnic minorities suffer also from the effects of racial discrimination. Moreover, first-generation immigrants are at a disadvantage because of their late entry into the British labour market, with consequences for their pension entitlements based on years of service. In all, this is a useful and interesting set of studies which throw much light on their individual topics. Because of their diversity it is difficult to draw general conclusions apart from the obvious general ones about the processes and problems involved in the acculturation of immigrants. Since there is much about ethnic minorities and not just migrants, perhaps more could have been said about those who were born in Britain, a rapidly-growing proportion of these groups. HAROLD POLLINS

STEP HEN W. MASSIL, ed., 77ze Jewish Year Book 200!, 5761-5762, 6o + 376 pp., published in association with the Jewish Chronicle (London), Vallentine Mitchell, London and Portland, Oregon, 200I, £26.oo. The Preface of this Year Book is a brief summary by the editor of some of the main events and developments concerning Jews during the year 2000. There is a list of publications of Jewish interest, including a Yiddish version of 'Winnie the Pooh', which appeared during that year; a list ofJewish personalities who died in 2ooo; and a mention of some of the events scheduled for 200 I, such as the tercentenary of Bevis Marks Synagogue. (There is a reproduction of the impressive Ark of that synagogue facing the title page of the Year Book.) Mr Massil also notes that 200I is a Census year in Britain and that there will be, exceptionally, a religious affiliation question. That decision has given rise to much debate but it has been argued by those demographers and statisticians concerned with British Jewry that Jewish welfare agencies would benefit from a knowledge of the size and composition of the community when they plan for the future provision of social services and educational needs of the country's Jews. g8 BOOK REVIEWS

The Preface ends on page I o with the comment that we will be 'on tenterhooks as to whether Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut will be elected to serve as the next Vice-President of the United States'. The Preface is dated 5 October 2000; was there no time well before the publication date of'March oooi' to delete this sentence at the foot of the page- even if it had been decided not to incur printing costs by altering the text only to note that Senator Lieberman had been chosen as the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency? However, this is a very minor criticism. The volume has been admirably edited and it is a joy to find a very high standard of proof­ reading. The one-page press release did not augur well and one wonders whether it was the Jewish Chronicle which prepared it and that Mr Massil was not shown a proof, for surely he would have corrected 'schollars', 'empasysing', 'ambassies'; 'th period'; and 'The book also has it's usual full calendar for 200 I'. The editorial Preface is followed by a set of essays on various aspects ofJewish education. The first is by Jo Wagerman, the President of the Board of Deputies ofBritishJews and 'formerly Head Teacher at the JFS'. There is the presupposition that the reader will know or can easily discover what all the initials printed in the Year Book stand for, but unfortunately the list of 'Abbreviations Used' on p. 62 does not include jFS'; one would then assume that the answer will be found in the Index under :Jewish' but one would be wrong to do so for it is only under :Jews that the title is listed as :Jews' Free School'. There is a similar problem with jPR' which sometimes appears instead of'IJPR' (the Institute for Jewish Policy Research); JPR is listed neither in the page of Abbreviations Used nor in the Index and of course this is not an old set of initials since IJPR is the fairly recent successor to the Institute ofJewish Affairs of London (I]A). But to return to Jo Wagerman's essay, entitled 'What is Jewish Education For?' (pp. I I~I 6). She answers her own question: 'AJewish school is about identity and commitment. The single most important thing in our lives is that we are Jews' (p. I 3). That may be so from the point of view of her former and of her present position; for many thousands ofJews in Britain in the present day that is not the case since a high proportion of British Jewry has no affiliation either with a synagogue or with any Jewish organization. She clearly has firm beliefs and writes indignantly about the Orthodox rabbis who still expect Jewish women to be meekly subservient to their husbands and perform all household chores and maternal tasks; she objects strongly to rabbis and teachers who incorporate 'into religious faith and practice any social and masculine prejudices', for example (p. I 6), that a husband should always be served first at the table; a husband should not be asked to perform domestic chores like taking out the trash, or putting 99 BOOK REVIEWS the children to bed, because he will, of course, be engaged in Torah study; his Torah study is more important than her Torah study; indeed, everything he does is more important than anything she may do.

She adds: 'In America, Israel and Britain there are now crisis numbers of men aged 35 who cannot keep themselves and their large families'. ' But help may be at hand for them if their wives have acquired the l skills necessary for information technology. Indeed this is when secular education for Orthodox women suddenly becomes acceptable, since , it will help finance a husband who is engaged in full-time study of the Torah and, 'best of all' the author adds with heavy irony, such wives can work from home. She laments the fact that the Jewish command- ment to teach a man a trade has been forgotten (p. r 6). The essay will no doubt be deservedly applauded by all secular Jewish women and many of their Orthodox sisters. Regular readers of this Journal will probably remember the article on Orthodox Jewish women now allowed to practise as rabbinical advocates to defend their devoutly observant sisters who are victims of heartless and sometimes abusive husbands. (See 'Religion, Feminism, and Professionalism: The Case of Rabbinical Advocates' by Ronen Shamir et al. in vol. 38, no. 2, December I gg6.) Another notable essay is by Gerry Black on 'The Jews of Hackney Downs School' (pp. 52-60). The school was generally known as 'The Grocers' School' because it had been founded in I 870 as a school for boys by the Worshipful Company of Grocers. The author notes that in many ways, that grammar school 'resembled a minor public school'. By the end of the I 930s, about so per cent of the pupils were Jewish and that remained the case into the rg6os. Moreover, 'The sixth form was more than 70 per cent Jewish, and the Science Sixth (from which many boys went on to become doctors, dentists and pharmacists) was almost entirely Jewish' (pp. ss-s6). Indeed, I remember as a graduate student meeting a young doctor who had gone to the Grocers' and had won a scholarship to train as a physician at London's Middlesex Hospital, which he said was often referred to as the Yiddlesex. He had lived in a very modest home as a schoolboy, sharing an outside lavatory with other tenants. Several of his fellow­ pupils from the Grocers' were rising in the professions- as solicitors, scientists, and university teachers - and had moved to prosperous districts. Another won the Somerset Maugham travelling prize for a novel published before he had reached the age of 30; he had used a nom de plume, but it was a name which as a boy he had confided to some of his schoolfriends that he intended to use. One of them was working in the Far East when he saw the announcement of the prize and he immediately recognized the pseudonym.

lOO BOOK REVIEWS Gerry Black states that he interviewed Old Boys for the purpose of his essay and he cites in more than two pages the names of former pupils who have reached positions of some eminence, even in the rabbinate, for although Hackney Downs School 'was very much a Church of England-based institution', it had enlightened headmasters and the boys had facilities for Jewish study. Some of the Old Boys have settled in Israel and occupied positions of influence in the civil service and in Israeli universities. There is a flourishing branch in Israel of the Old Boys' club. It is interesting to note finally that the head of the publisher of the Year Book (Vallentine Mitchell) is himself an Old Boy; he is Frank Cass, 'the foremost publisher ofJewish books and journals' (p. 59). SephardiJews in Britain receive little attention from publications about Anglo:Jewry or from social research projects, so it is good to see the short essay by Rabbi Dr Abraham Levy on the English Sephardim (pp. 37-40). I have been told by more than one person who has been associated with the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies that there is strong resistance to suggestions that the Centre devote adequate resources for a serious study of Sephardi Jewry or even for some limited research aboutJudeo-Spanish. (Many years ago, when I was attending an international Congress in Jerusalem, I received a telephone call at my hotel and was invited to give a talk in Yiddish about the Congress; I replied that I was not competent to do so, but that I would gladly speak inJudeo-Spanish, only to be told that Kol Yisrael was interested only in Yiddish.) The nine essays on Jewish education on pp. I I-6o are followed by the principal sections of the Year Book (pp. I-363) and the Index. The information is given clearly and concisely. The section on 'Other Countries' (that is, apart from Great Britain and Ireland) reveals that Jews are everywhere- as antisemites are often alleging- from A to Z, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. We are told that the Jewish population figures are taken from a I 99 I handbook, so it may well be that the so Jews listed for Afghanistan are no longer there. Burma is said to have 25Jews and surprisingly, an Israeli embassy. Obviously, not allJewish data reflect the I99I position, since the entry on p. I47 about Shanghai states: 'Notice has been received of a new community established in Shanghai in Igg8'; the number of Jews there is not given, but there is the name and address (as well as the telephone and Fax numbers) of the President. Surprisingly, Colombia has 7,ooo Jews, mainly in Bogota, and smaller communities in other areas, including Medellin. Curac;ao has about I soJews; Sephardim established a settlement there in I 65 I and their synagogue was built in I 732; it is 'the oldest in continuous use in the western Hemisphere' while the cemetery established in I 659 is the

IOI BOOK REVIEWS oldest in the Americas. Cura~ao has a Sephardi and an Ashkenazi synagogue as well as an Israeli Consulate. Cyprus is said to have only 50 Jews nowadays and a cemetery in Larnaca. The Fijian Islands have I 2 Jewish families. After these smaller outposts ofJewish settlement, we come in alphabetical order to France, with its 6so,ooo Jews. We learn that Jews came with the Greek founders of Marseilles about 2,500 years ago; I 2o,ooo were deported or killed during the Second World War but there was a post­ I war immigration from Central and Eastern Europe and later a great influx from North Africa. Greece is listed as having a population of 4,8oo -a remnant of the I939 total of 77,220, after the massive deportations and slaughter of the Second World War. The Year Book claims that the present Greek Jews are 'all Sephardim'; one may wonder whether the odd Ashkenazi living there has become an 'honorary Sepharad', as has sometimes happened in England when a Jewish individual of Eastern European descent takes a spouse of Sephardi origin and joins a Sephardi synagogue. Indonesia is listed as having I 5Jews (in five families) in Surabaya and one other Jew in the capital, Jakarta. Among the 'Other Countries', Israel has a great deal of data detailed in the Year Book, including an impressive list of embassies and legations, giving the names and addresses of the ambassadors; after the peace accords of I 993, Israel renewed diplomatic ties with I 6o countries (p. I 6I). Since the Year Book is published in England, the section on Israel includes a list of 'British Settlements'- that is, kibbutzim and moshavim either founded, or largely populated, by immigrants from Britain and Ireland but including in some cases English-speakingJews from North America, South Africa, and New Zealand. It is not surprising that only two Jewish families are reported to be living in Pakistan, in Karachi. The synagogue built in I 893 was reported closed in I987. South Korea has some 25Jewish families in the capital, Seoul, while Taiwan has 'more than 30' families constitut­ ing I So individuals. In great contrast, we come to the United States of America, with nearly six million Jews (s,Soo,ooo ). There is a list of Representative Organizations, religious and welfare ones, as well as educational and cultural, complete with addresses and in some cases telephone numbers as well. There are 34 Zionist organizations and others concerned with Israel in the United States. The institutions of British Jewry are listed on pages I-67, followed by its local organizations and by United Kingdom legislation con­ cerningJews. There is also a Who's Who, a list ofJewish members of the Privy Council, peers and peeresses, MPs, baronets, knights, and Dames, as well as Fellows of the Royal Society and of the British Academy (pp. 2 I o-2 I 3). !02 BOOK REVIEWS

The Jewish Year Book for 200 I is an excellent volume of reference for all those who are interested in Jewish affairs.

J. DJAMOUR

JEAN MEDAWAR and DAVID PYKE, Hitler's Gift: Scientists Who Fled Nazi Germany, xx + 268 pp., Richard Cohen Books, London, in association with the European Jewish Publication Society, 2000, £2o.oo. Lady Medawar, former Director of the Margaret Pyke Trust for Family Planning, is the widow of Sir Peter Medawar, who was awarded the No bel Prize for his work on transplantation biology. Dr David Pyke is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and author of several medical books. In this vividly-written book, the authors recount the careers of many distinguished scientists who were directly or indirectly exiled from Germany and Austria during the Nazi regime and found refuge in Britain and the United States. It is recorded that of the I 500 exiles who settled in Britain, 20 were awarded Nobel Prizes and more than 50 became Fellows of the Royal Society (p. xviii). By far the largest segment of the newcomers were Jewish. The book tells of the immense contributions that the immigrants made to the life, culture, and science of the receiving countries and to their vital roles in the war effort of the Allies. It is worth noting here that one of Sir Peter Medawar's graduate students at Birmingham University was Berlin-born Leslie Brent (future professor of Immunology at the Medical School of London's St Mary's Hospital) who had come to England in I 939 in a Kindertransport group. In describing the enterprise of notable British and American academics and other public figures who helped the scientists (and future scientists) to find a refuge and suitable employment, the authors do not overlook some of the obstacles which were put in the way of the newcomers. Deportation and/ or internment are not excluded from the narrat­ ive. One internee (then a young man and later to become a leading barrister in London) received a letter from a friend who wrote: What l feel about this internment is that it is an awful thing for the innocent ones, but it is very hard for them to distinguish between innocent and guilty, and the only thing is to intern everyone. I am sure that people like yourself will put up with this for the sake of England. The recipient of that letter later commented: 'That is precisely what I thought about internment'. The 'collar the lot' policy which prevailed and its related bureaucratic procedures have in recent years attracted less generous appraisal.

103 BOOK REVIEWS The key word in the book's title is 'gift'. At the centre ofNazidom as a movement and ideology were its obsessive racial hatreds; they were not incidental to it. The madness of the official hostility to Jews is exemplified by the declaration attributed to Hitler that 'if the dismissal ofJewish scientists means the annihilation of contemporary German science, then we shall do without science for a few years'. There are ten chapters: German Science Before Hitler; The Coming of the Nazis; Einsten; Rescuers; Refugees to Britain - Physicists; Refugees to Britain - Biologists and Chemists; Refugees to the United States; Those Who Stayed; Internment; and The Bomb. The 'Epilogue' consists of a I4-line quotation from a speech by Hans Krebs in I g6s when he presented to the British Academy 'for the furtherance of scholarship' a cheque for £go,ooo raised by the Association ofJewish Refugees in Britain in gratitude for the help the refugees had been given. He said: No sum of money can adequately and appropriately express our gratefulness to the British people ... What this country of our adoption gave us was not just a new home and livelihood ... \Ve also found a new and better way oflife coming from an atmosphere of political oppression and persecution ... we found here a spirit of friendliness, humanity, tolerance and fairness. It is this way of life with which some of us, I for one, fell in love. Some famous Gentile scientists, although they were out of sympathy with the Nazis, stayed in Germany and retained senior positions­ for example, Max Planck whom the authors of this book describe as 'the godfather of German science' and Werner Heisenberg who laid the foundations of quantum mechanics (p. I 6g). Planck, within the limits open to him, gave some protection to Jewish colleagues. The illustrious scientist and Nobel Laureate, Dr Max Perutz, contributes a Foreword. He had left Austria for England in I 936 in order to study at Cambridge University. His father was a prosperous textile manufacturer in Vienna and was able to give him financial support; but after Hitler's army marched into Vienna in I 938, his parents fled to Switzerland and became penniless refugees so that Max's future in Cambridge became precarious. However, Lawrence Bragg, the new Professor of Experimental Physics, 'applied to the Rockefeller Foundation for a grant to cover Perutz's research. The Foundation duly came up with funds from January 1939, enabling Perutz to bring his parents from Switzerland in March' (p. 109). But the young man's career was interrupted for some months by deportation to, and internment in, Canada as an enemy alien. His works of scientific discovery in peace and war illustrate the 'gift' in memorable fashion. In his Foreword, he pays homage to the 'selfless generosity' of British academics, spurred by the initiative of the then Director of the London School of Economics, William Beveridge, and 104 BOOK REVIEWS one of the LSE's teachers, Lionel Rob bins. They had been outraged in March I 933 when they read the news of the wholesale dismissal of Jewish teachers from German universities and by May I 933 they had ensured that 4I prominent academics 'including seven Nobellaure­ ates in science and medicine wrote to The Times announcing the foundation of the Academic Assistance Council "to raise a fund, to be used primarily, though not exclusively, in providing maintenance for displaced teachers and investigators, and finding them work in universities and scientific institutions" ' (p. xii). Max Perutz states that he disagrees with the statement of the authors of the book that the emigration of the scientists was Hitler's loss and Britain's and America's gain: 'I must protest .... The gain was mine. Had I stayed in my native Austria, even if there had been no Hitler, I could never have solved the problem of protein structure, or founded the Laboratory of Molecular Biology ... It was Cambridge that made me, and for that I am forever grateful. The art historian Ernst Gombrich feels the same way. We all owe a tremendous debt to Britain.' However, when we come to an Appendix at the end of this book, whose author is the same Max Perutz, we read of the horrendous conditions and treatment which he and I 200 others had to endure in the troopship taking the 'enemy aliens' to Canada. That tale was first published in the New Yorker in August I 985 and it says much for the fairness of the authors of Hitler's Gift that they should have decided to include it. Conditions in the Canadian camps were also ghastly; in one of them, there were 'five cold-water taps and six latrines for seven hundred and twenty men' (p. 253). Nevertheless, when Max Perutz was told later that his release had been ordered by the British Home Office and that a professorship had been offered to him by the New School for Social Research in New York City (the post had been arranged by the Rockefeller Foundation who had mounted a rescue for the scholars which the Foundation had supported before the Second World War), he chose the alternative offered to him to return to England, in spite of the U-boats and the blitz. By January I94I he was back in England and learning that his father had been released from internment in the Isle of Man.

ISRAEL FINESTEIN

ROBERT A. ROCKA WAY, But He Was Good to His Mother: The Lives and Crimes if Jewish Gangsters, 288pp., Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem and New York, 2000. Within the teeming ranks of the impecunious residents of the Czarist Pale of Settlement who hustled a living with difficulty and appeared I05 BOOK REVIEWS ~ to exist virtually on fresh air alone, a small criminal element inevitably developed. Smuggling and procuring were activities with which Jews were perhaps most frequently associated. As is well-known, the involvement of Jews in the traffic in women ~ specifically Jewish women innocently seeking new lives in Western Europe and the United States during the period of the Great Migrations~ was heavy enough to be the focus of a disturbing report by the celebrated German Jewish feminist Bertha Pappenheim. But crimes of violence among Jews have always been rare, for there has been a traditional Jewish abhorrence about shedding blood. In the United States, and indeed in other destinations chosen by those who left the Russian Empire between I 88o and I g14, a minority of Jewish newcomers drifted into criminality, generally of the petty and 'white collar' kind. The involvement ofJews in this sort of crime seems largely to have been an opportunistic response to circumstance and to feelings of alienation and marginality brought about by the immigration experience. In the immediate prelude to the First Viorld War New York Jewry made concerted efforts to contain the problem, which proved fairly successful. However, with the introduction of Prohibition in I gIg a new phenomenon arose in New York and other American cities: the involvement ofJews in organized crime. The ban on alcohol proved too much of a temptation for those who perceived bootlegging~ purveying liquor illegally ~ as a quick and easy way out of poverty and squalor; exemption of sacramental wine by the Act prohibiting the sale of alcohol prompted the invention of bogus rabbis with non-existent congregations to act as outlets for the illicit trade. As Robert A. Rockaway reminds us, 50 per cent of the principal bootleggers in the United States were Jews, and their entrepreneurial activity did not stop there. 'People wanted booze, they wanted to gamble and they wanted broads', a former gangster in Detroit told him (page g). 'For a price, we provided them with their amusements.' Jews operated protection rackets in the garment and kosher meat industries. The supremo of the Jewish underworld during the Prohibition era was Arnold Rothstein (I882-Ig28) who, until he was shot dead in I 928, masterminded a huge multi-faceted empire peopled by a host of unsavoury characters. The son of a wealthy New York businessman ~ who was a respected communal figure, Rothstein fails to fit the stereotypical mould of the criminal who was 'depraved because he was deprived'. He is best-known, perhaps, for bribing the poorly-paid Chicago White Sox baseball players to deliberately lose the I gIg World Series, a traumatic act in American sporting history which caused them to be known as the 'Black Sox'. Prohibition ceased in I933· But it did not herald the end ofJews in organized crime. During the I 930s a new type of Jewish gangster 106 BOOK REVIEWS emerged, exemplified by such men as the notorious Bugsy Siege!, seemingly pathologically addicted to inflicting mayhem and violence. This was the era not of Prohibition but of Murder Inc. in Brooklyn and the infamous Purple Gang in Chicago: Jewish criminals worked alongside men of other ethnicities, particularly the far more numeric­ ally represented Italians, in the urban lawlessness which gripped the United States at that time. Such men had no compunction about breaking the Sixth Commandment, perhaps because their murderous activities were carried out against each other. Some were devoted family men: the verbatim characterization of one model son provides the title ofRockaway's book. Rockaway, a professor ofJewish History at Tel Aviv University, has made skilful use of oral testimonies, police files and newspaper reports in order to produce an engaging and lively insight into the character and motivations of the gangsters. He concludes that while deprivation and discrimination might have played their part in propelling individuals into a life of crime, the major linking factor was the quest for quick 'money, power, recognition and status', and the realization that 'crime was exciting', certainly more glamorous than the tedium of studying or the drudgery of working long hours in a shop or factory (pages 5g-6r). His book invites comparison with Rick Cohen's Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons and Gangster Dreams, published in London in r gg8 by Jonathan Cape. Also written in entertaining style, Cohen's account concentrates on the Jews connected with Murder Inc. in rg3os New York, whereas Rockaway has surveyed the inter-war scene not only in New York but elsewhere in the United States. The books complement each other. They add to the historiography of Jewish crime and criminality pioneered by such monographs as Albert Fried's The Rise and Fall qf the Jewish Gangster in America (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, rg8o),Jenna WeissmanJoselit's Our Gang: Jewish Crime and the New York Jewish Community I900-I940 (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, rg83), and James M. O'Kane's The Crooked Ladder: Gangsters, Ethnicity, and the American Dream (Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, rgg2), as well as DeanJennings' We On[y Kill Each Other: The Life and Bad Times qf Bugsy Siege! (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ., rg68) and Robert Lacey's Little Man: Mryer Lansky and the Gangster Life(Little Brown, Boston, rggr). BecauseJews have produced so few overtly criminal figures, American Jewish gangsters continue to be men of fascination, ironically in preference to saints and scholars. HILARY L. RUBINSTEIN

107 BOOK REVIEWS

JON STRATTON, Coming Out Jewish: Constructing Ambivalent Identities, x+34I pp., Routledge, London and New York, 2000, £I3·99 (paperback). This is a book about Jewish identity but it ranges widely over time and subject-matter, including, inter alia, migration and antisemitism. The author does not confine himself to topics centring on Jews but looks at migration in general and consciously makes comparisons with other groups and situations. In the Introduction he provides a definition by comparing 'coming out' with 'passing', the former being the latter's reverse. While 'passing is the practice whereby a person gives the appearance of being something other than they are, being straight when they are gay or white when they are a Jew' (my italics) he defines 'coming out' as 'the practice of publicly acknowledging that which need not be acknowledged in that particular society, precisely because a person can, and has, in fact, passed' (p. I 2 ). Thus much of the book deals with the ambivalence of the Other, in this case with an emphasis onJewish experience. After the Introduction there are I o chapters; some were produced on various occasions as lectures or publications, while others have not been previously published. The chapters are allocated between three sections and the author at the end of his lengthy Introduction describes the logic of the book's structure and the contents of the sections and chapters (pp. 25-26), as follows. Section One, 'How not to assimilate', begins with a chapter on Jews in Britain. It 'examines how the ambivalent placing ofJews in British society has produced a situation where Jews, as a group, have become inhibited from making public statements about their circumstance'. (A surprising statement. The representative Board of Deputies ofBritishJews has been in existence since I 760.) This is followed by a chapter about the 'connections between assimilation and the uncanny', using notions ofDerrida and of Freud. Their theories, he says, are expressions of their ambiguous situation as 'ambivalently assimilated Jews'. The third chapter in this section is about 'Yiddish fear' and he uses personal stories as the basis for his view that such fear is transmitted through the generations even though circumstances have changed. The second Section is entitled. '(Dis)placement in the state', and is essentially on minority status within the modern nation-state and, especially, antisemitism. Indeed, chapter 4 is built on the argument that the state aimed to 'construct a homogeneous national population' and its failure was blamed on the Jews. The next two chapters, on the Diaspora and on a theory of migration, are based on a psycho­ analytical approach. Thus he discusses why, according to him, Jews have felt at home in the United States and in Israel but not in European countries. The final Section has four, more empirical, 108 BOOK REVIEWS chapters. Two are on Australia, about its White Australia policy and on its recent move to multiculturalism. In the latter case he uses the different groups of Jews as a means of 'unpacking many of the assumptions of multiculturalism'. The last two chapters are on the United States, and one of these chapters is about changing attitudes towards assimilation. The Jews were important in the ideas of both the 'melting pot' and cultural pluralism and he shows how the latter came under attack by African-Americans in favour of multicultural­ ism. The final chapter in the book is jazzily entitled, 'Seinftldis a Jewish sitcom, isn't it?' He examines the ambivalent Jewishness of this popular American television show and notes the 'Yiddishisation of American culture,' English-born Jon Stratton has a chair of Cultural Studies in Australia and it is that academic subject (on page 2 he refers to it as a '[non-] discipline') which informs this book. An important feature of the first three chapters is the interweaving of episodes from his own life, as the child of a mixed marriage (a non-Jewish father) who had no Jewish upbringing. (There is a charming vignette of his reaching the bar mitzvah age of r 3 and being surprised by the numerous presents he received from relatives.) It is the experiences of such people which especially interest him and within his broad discussion they appear to be at the centre of his arguments and thoughts. In a sense the book's sub-title refers especially (although by no means exclusively) to them. It is important to note that, especially in the Introduction and the first two Sections, he is writing a work of theory and analysis, He makes use of the writings of numerous theorists and others on the subjects he is concerned with. The whole book is wide-ranging and demonstrates an extensive acquaintanceship with the views of well­ known authors (Zygmunt Bauman and Raymond Williams, for example), as well as a host of others who are only recently making their names. Why, then, does one (or, more specifically, this reviewer) come away from it at the end feeling disappointed? It is not just the matter of the gaffe on page 2, where the author is explaining that he is concentrating his study on English-speaking Jews and especially Ashkenazim, descendants of Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern Europe, and he goes on: 'It is these Jews who formed the Bund ... whose ideas for migration to Ere::. Israel were a precursor of Theodor Herzl's, and who subsequently formed the backbone of Zionism'. Er, not quite. In fact, the very opposite: the Bund was anti-Zionist. Later, on page 147, he does in fact talk about the opposition of the Bund to Zionism. A minor matter of editing perhaps and- since most of the book is not empirical, the paucity of data clearly avoids such lapses. The several reasons for disappointment are these. First is a question of presentation and style. The author- keen perhaps, to indicate his rog BOOK REVIEWS familiarity with much of the literature in the field - tends to quote too many people too much of the time. This by itself need not be a problem except that too often some of the quotations obscure rather than enlighten. Moreover, he also tends sometimes, to get inveigled into discussions and controversy with these references which take him away from his main themes. The argument gets lost. One example is on pp. 84-85 where he is talking about fear. He introduces the ideas of Brian Massumi but quickly dismisses him with 'Massumi may be right, but this is not the genre of fear with which I am concerned here'. Why then talk about them? Second, I allow for the fact that in the first two sections analysis, interpretation and theory do not necessarily need to be based on solid empirical research. Where he does enter that field, in the last four chapters, my criticisms do not apply for he handles data convincingly and the material and arguments are clearly and unequivocally presented. However, some information is needed in the first parts of the book and there are problems there. Thus, while the introduction of his own experiences, not excluding his description of an interpreta­ tion of a dream (there is, as noted above, quite a bit of psychoanalysis in the book), certainly enlivens the work, it has the disadvantage that it appears to take the place of systematic research. Moreover, it is used as the basis for generalizations. Thus in chapter 6 one of the bits of evidence about Jewish fear and anxiety was his finding some antisemitic grafitti on a lavatory wall. This worried him greatly. The idea that minority group members may suffer anxiety is a worthwhile topic to pursue but most of the evidence he produces consists of assertions by other writers or anecdotes. For example, after properly relating past horrors, notably the Holocaust, he writes of a son of survivors whose mother was over-protective, instituting in him a sense of mistrust of the world, a place of danger: 'There were constant reminders to check the doors and windows to see if they were locked'. The author comments: 'The securing of the doors and windows is what guarantees the home of the house as a place of safety, and of Jewish life'. But I think he has come to the wrong general conclusion when he notes that the English-born parents of his Jewish lover (see below) also kept their windows and doors shut (p. ID r ). I would suggest that in view of rising crime, or fear of rising crime, most people nowadays keep their windows and doors shut. The particular experiences and memories of Holocaust victims are real enough but they cannot be used to produce generalizations about fear and mistrust in general. Similarly, although brought up in Engl;md- a middle-class child in a fee-paying school and one who had no Jewish upbringing- he nevertheless felt something of an outsider and concluded that he did not belong in England (p. 20 ). In the 24 pages of chapter 6, 'Migrating

[ !0 BOOK REVIEWS to Utopia', he plausibly explains why Jews felt 'at home' in the United States, but their feeling the opposite in Europe is little more than merely asserted. Indeed a general third criticism of the book, especially of the first two Sections, is the paucity of solid evidence to support some of his statements. Sometimes empirical statements are made which do not necessarily support his assertions. Chapter 3, 'Ghetto Thinking and Everyday Life', deals with fear and its transmission from generation to generation. As mentioned above, he includes his own experiences here. He discusses the home as sanctuary and describes how, in his twenties, he had a relationship with a Jewish woman in England. The family were well-to-do and their home was tastefully furnished. He comments on the deep impression that the quiet and calm of the house made on him; it was a haven and a refuge and whenever he left, after a stay of a few days, he would be overwhelmed by the noise and dirt and the 'day-to-day aggression of London life. My heart would pound and my fear would rise in my throat ... ' (p. 94). It is not easy to see what the point of the story is in relation to the specific themes of his book. Finally, one is suddenly startled by the unusual use of concepts and ideas. I have noted above his observation about Jews not being white (it is made several times). One knows what he is aiming at but it ought not to be a general statement of the Jewish condition. And what is one to make of this statement early in the book?' "The Jew" is a gentile, Western Other, as much a construct as, indeed often a part of, the construct of the "Oriental" or "Asiatic". Yet, "the Jew" is also ambivalently considered to be white' (p. g). These points may seem somewhat carping but the undoubted merits which the book pos­ sesses ~ many of the theoretical insights (the use of Raymond \Villiams's 'structure of feeling' as well as some of the ideas ofZygmunt Bauman in io!lodemity and Ambivalence, I 99 I, for example~ are greatly reduced by the poverty of systematic supporting evidence and the obscurity of the style adopted. Moreover it is a pity that the author sometimes gets distracted by those he quotes and follows them into sometimes irrelevant by-paths. HAROLD POLLINS

I I I CHRONICLE

Les Cahiers du judaisme, a periodical published by the Alliance israclite universelle (AIU), continues the series of Les .Nouueaux Cahiers published by the AIU from rg65 to 1997. The Spring/Summer issue of 2000 has as its theme 'Mers et Traversees' (pp. 4 -83). The first article in that section is by Martin Buber; it is taken from a French translation of his book on l'l'loses and is entitled 'Le miracle de la mer'. There is also an article by Evelyne Oliel­ Grausz, 'Cours et parcours maritimes des Sefarades' (pp. 14-28) in which she describes the journeys across the oceans made by Spanish and Portuguese Jews and their descendants through the centuries after their exile from the Iberian Peninsula. She relates the case of a young .Jewish widow in Amsterdam who undertook in 1754 a journey to Surinam (then a Dutch possession) to find her dead husband's brother; her marriage had not been blessed with children and she therefore needed to find her brother-in-law to fulfil the Biblical requirement that he marry her to raise seed to the dead (the levirate). If he refused to marry her, he was required to perform the special halitsa ritual in order to free her to marry again according to Jewish religious law- so that she would nor remain an agunah. When she finally reached Surinam, it was only to find that her brother-in-law had run away and there ensued r 8 months of correspondence between the rabbinate in Amsterdam and the Jewish authorities in Surinam until the man was traced and the halitsa performed. The author notes that this is only one of many such situations which caused Sephardim to undertake extensive sea journeys: evading the Inquisition when the 'converts' were denounced as being secret Jews, commerce, family reunions, etc. In 166g, for example, the 47ojews ofOran (then a Spanish possession) were expelled and set sail for Livorno but eventually landed instead in Villefranche de Nice, then a possession of the Duke of Savoy. The case of young Benjamin da Costa reveals the extent of the extensive Sephardi networks (p. r6). In 1728, in a petition to King George II, he relates that his parents had first settled in Bayonne, then moved to the Netherlands, where they had died, while he was residing in London. Then there is the case of Abraham Gabay Isidro, born in the Iberian Peninsula, who escapes the Inquisition while his wife and several kinsmen are imprisoned by the Holy Office, reaches London where he undergoes circumcision. He then decides to undertake religious studies and is ordained a rabbi in Amsterdam, where he delivers a sermon in the city's Great Synagogue, then is appointed to the rabbinates of Surinam and Barbados, and finally moves to London. His wife returns to her native Bayonne, from where she commissions the printing of a memorial work printed in Amsterdam, Sifer Tad Avraham.

I I 2 CHRONICLE Another illustration of the cosmopolitan network of Sephardim is the will ofDavid Bernal (dated 1716, in Cura~ao) who makes bequests to his sister Anna (who is married and lives in Bayonne), his brothers Manuel and lsaac in Amsterdam, his other brother .Juan in London, and his brother-in-law in Brazil (p. r6). Trading across continents required extensive maritime journeys. Mose Franco Albuquerque lived in Livorno at the end of the seventeenth century and dealt in coral. He had three sons; one of them remained \vith him in Livorno, another settled in London, and the third went to Madras where diamonds were mined. The coral is exported to India, where it is in great demand, while the raw diamonds are cut and polished in the Netherlands and then exported to London. *

The Autumn 2000 issue of Les Cahiers dujudai"sme has Hassidism as its main theme (pp. 3-120). That section includes an article by David Assaf on the 'royal' court of hassidic charismatic leaders in the nineteenth century; an article by Shifra Epstein on hassidic pilgrimages in Poland; and jacques Gutwirth's article on the renaissance ofHassidism in 1945-2000. In another section of that issue, Ariel Schweitzer writes on 'Le cinema israelien des annees 1960-1970'. * Another publication of the Alliance is Les Cahiers de !'Alliance ismilite universe/le. Its July 2000 issue includes a report on the various ceremonies to celebrate the 14oth anniversary of the establishment of the Alliance. In r86o, a small group of French Jews had decided to create an institution which would help to ensure the survival ofjudaism. In May 2000, the heads of the Alliance's various schools and colleges, as well as other professionals concerned with educational matters, met for three days to confer and listen to various lectures and to take part in workshops and discussion groups. The Mayor of Paris welcomed the participants in the Hotel de Ville and congratulated them for the achievements of the Alliance which was so successful in combining.Jewish tradition with modern secular institutions. The February 200 r issue of the same periodical includes a report on a Seminar held in Budapest in November 2000 on Jewish education; the participants came from Eastern European countries, from Greece, the Netherlands, and the United States. The issue also describes the complex negotiations which finally led to the return of 30 boxes of Alliance archives; they had been stolen by the Germans during the Second World War and later taken by the Russians. ln r 992, the Russians agreed to return to France the French documents which they held but it was only in November 2000 that the French lVIinistry of Foreign Affairs received 30 boxes of Alliance archives and 20 boxes of the archives ofthejewish Colonization Association; they were handed over formally to the Alliance at the Quai d'Orsay in December 2000, 6o years after they had been forcibly removed from the Alliance. *

I 13 CHRONICLE The May-August 2000 issue of La Rassegna Mensile, a periodical publication of the Union of Italian Jewish communities, includes an article on the Portuguese Jews of Tunisia during I 7 IO-I940 (pp. 25-97). In I 7 IO, a group of Portuguese Jews set out from Livorno and landed in Tunis. The local Jewish population was suspicious of their motives while the ne\vcomers looked down on their indigenous co-religionists, whom they considered to be sadly lacking in formal education. These 'Portuguese Jews' were largely descended from Spanish Jews. The article is based on the text of a presentation made in March 2000 at a Conference held in the University of Tunis on the 'Niediterranean Communities ofTunisia'. * Volume 7, I999 of Sociological Papers (edited by Ernest Krausz and Gitta Tulea) is a publication of the Sociological Institute for Community Studies ofBar-Ilan University. It was received in London in July 2000. It includes an article by Bernard Lazenvitz, 'Contrasting the Religious Involvement of Jews in the United States and Israel' and another article by Leo Davids on :Jewish One-Parent Families in Canada: A Collective Portrait'. The Canadian Census has data on religion and the data in the Census of I 996 were released in October I997· They show that 'the Jewish lone parents origins are ovenvhelmingly post-marital, whether by divorce or widow hood. Jewish lone parents who were never married are much more exceptional than in the larger society, being less than r in zo of all Canada'sjewish lone parents at that time' (p. 8). * The Report of the Jewish Marriage Council for I 999-2000 notes that it was founded in r946. It starts with the Council's '!vlission Statement', listing its eight aims and four 'Principles'; the fourth principle is the following declaration: 'We accept the religious authority of the Chief Rabbi'. Three full pages (pp. I 3-I 5) are devoted to the names of the Council's patrons (headed by the Chief Rabbi and his wife), life patrons, and honorary consultants; followed by the names of the members of the Council and of the personnel and administrative staff. The Council provides a Nationwide Jewish Crisis Helpline which 'averages around 250 calls a month, with calls from all walks of life and all over the country, involving some 6o volunteers twelve hours a day, six days a week' (p. 2 I). The Council also has a Get Advisory Service 'to provide specialist information and support for all those who arc seeking to obtain a religious divorce with the minimum of acrimony' (p. 21 ). * The Fifth Conference of the European Sociological Association will take place from 28 August to ISt September 200I at the University of Helsinki in Finland. The subject of the Conference is 'Visions and Divisions: Challenges to European Sociology'. *

I 14 CHRONICLE

The Fall 2000 issue of Tel Aviv University News states (p. g) that the President of Poland visited Tel Aviv University and in an address at an open meeting 'reiterated Poland's commitment to preserving historical sites connected with the Holocaust and promised to promote greater dialogue between Polish and Israeli youth, to open Polish archives to historians, and to rei~state Polish citizenship to each Polish Jewish exile'. He is quoted as saymg: The Jewish and Polish people share over rooo years of common history. Traces ofJewish heritage can be found in every corner of Poland. At the same time we recognize that this relationship is overshadowed by the tragedy of the Holocaust. We are making every effort to teach this special history to Polish schoolchildren. The president of Poland also discussed with the University's President academic co-operation and a programme of student exchanges between Tel Aviv University and Polish universities. * Tel Aviv University has been implementing an Initiative for Social Involvement injaffa; a large number of projects are to be operated by different units of the University. Some have already been carried out (p. I g of the Fall 2000 issue of Tel Aviv University News): 40 Arab and Jewish women from Jaffa took part in a personal empowerment course ... I 20 junior high-school pupils from Jaffa explored the topic of marine invertebrates in the laboratories of TAU's Department of Zoology. 30 Arab and Jewish high-school students received funding to take preparatory courses for the national university entrance examinations.

Programs for the coming academic year include the development of learning centers, a wide range of enrichment programs for Jaffa residents, and a hot meals program for kindergarten and junior-high school children. * The February 200 I Newsletter of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies announces the opening of a new Oxford University Teaching and Research Unit in Hebrew andjewish Studies. 'The unit is staffed by Fellows of the Centre, whose integration with the University thereby acquires a major new dimension .... The subjects taught include all aspects ofJewish history, literature and thought, as well as Hebrew and Yiddish languages.' The Newsletter quotes a statement from the Chairman of the Oriental Studies Faculty Board: 'Classical Hebrew has been studied in Oxford since the time of Henry the Eighth, but the teaching of post-biblical Jewish culture as an academic subject in its own right is only now, with the creation of the Unit, firmly established as an

I I 5 CHRONICLE important element in the research and teaching of humanities in the University'. * The Institute for Jewish Policy Research has published a Report on 'Governance in the Jewish voluntary sector' (no. I 200I of Planning for Jewish communities). The Introduction states (p. 3) that the study was commissioned by the IJPR and forms part of a four-year research programme- Long-term Planning for British Jewry- that aims to inform the development of policies and priorities for Jewish charities and other voluntary organizations. The principal method of data collection was conducting semi­ structured interviews with the chairpersons of 36 organizations. The fieldwork was undertaken from August I 999 to May 20oo; 'two-thirds of the 36 participants interviewed for the study were male and one­ third female. They tended to be middle-aged or older: 55 per cent of them were between 40 and 59 years old, and 37 per cent were aged 6o or over' (p. 4), and they were all members of a synagogue. An earlier IJPR Report (The financial resources qf the U.K Jewish voluntary sector) had estimated the sector's income from all sources in I997 at just over £500 million, and there are ~ust under 2,ooo financially independent organizations'. In a section entitled 'The motivation of chairpersons', the authors of the Report state that the most frequently cited route to involvement 'was having been asked to join by a member of their family, a friend or a Jewish colleague. This echoes studies of volunteering in the UK generally' (p. 6). The authors conclude that five key challenges for the Jewish voluntary sector emerged from their interviews: the need for co­ operation; the challenge of internal divisions; the need for a sense of collective responsibility; the challenge of demography (the shrinking of British Jewry and the ageing of its profile); and the problem of resources (pp. 25-26). An earlier IJPR survey and other research revealed that 'So per cent of the money was donated by only 9 per cent of donors. Therefore a special feature of the Jewish voluntary sector is an over-reliance on a small proportion of the relatively affluent Jewish population' (p. I). * It was reported last February that the annual report of the Community Security Trust stated that there was a sharp increase in antisemitic incidents in Britain: 405 recorded anti:Jewish attacks on people and property during 2000 - nearly twice the previous year's figure of 207. There were 5 I physical attacks; two of these were acts of attempted murder. About a third of all assaults (30 per cent) had I I6 BOOKS RECEIVED occurred in Manchester. On the other hand, the distribution of antisemitic literature had declined. * It was announced last December that a quarter of a million dollars from charitable foundations have been allocated to preserve historic synagogues in seven countries in Central and Eastern Europe and to sponsor archaeological work in a site in Surinam, in Dutch Guyana.

BOOKS RECEIVED (Books listed here may be reviewed later)

Stuart Cohen and Milton Shain, eds., Israel: Culture, Religion and Society 1948- 1998, vi+ 98 pp., Jewish Publications-South Africa, the lsaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre of the University of Cape Town in Association with the Argov Centre ofBar-Ilan University, 2000, n.p. Nurith Gertz, Myths in Israeli Culture. Captives of a Dream vi+ I86 pp., Vallentine Mitchell, London and Portland, Oregon, 2000, £37·50 (paperback, £I6.5o). Ethan Goffman, Imagining Each Other: Blacks and Jews in Contemporary American Literature, xiii + 262 pp., State University of New York Press, Albany, N.Y., 2000,$21.95 (paperback). David L. Gollaher, Circumcision. A History of the World's Most Controversial Surgery, xv + 253 pp., Basic Books, New York, 2000, $26.oo or £I5·95· Leonard Jay Greenspoon and Bryan F. Le Beau, eds., Sacred Text, Secular Times: The Hebrew Bible in the Modern World, xix + 295 pp., Creighton University Press, Omaha, Nebraska, 2000, $25.00. Robert Levy, Anna Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist, xii + 407 pp., University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 20oi, $35.00 (paperback, $22.95). Denise Phillips, Modern Jewish Cooking With Style: Innovative and Contemporary Kosher Recipes for All Occasions, xi + I 96 pp, Robson Books, London, 2ooo, £I 6.95. Chaim I. Waxman,Jewish Baby Boomers. A Communal Perspective, vii + 22 I pp., State University of New York Press, Albany, N.Y., 200I, $Ig.g5.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

EoNA BRADLOW is Research Associate at the Kaplan Centre of the University of Cape Town. HAROLD Pou.INS is a retired Senior Tutor at Ruskin College, Oxford. W.D. RuBINSTEIN is a Professor in the Department of History and Welsh History at the University ofWales at Aberystwyth. \VILLIAM SHAFFIR is a Professor in the Department of Sociology of Mc:l\1aster University. RAcHEL SHARABY is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology of Bar-Ilan University. "7 Theresienstadt: Survival in Hell MELANIE OPPENHEJM Translation by Dina Ullendorff Preface by Ralph Oppenhejm with a foreword by Edward Ullendorff

I Professor Edward Ullendorff begins his foreword to Melanie Oppenhejm's memoir, Theresienst~dt: Su1vival in Hell: 'After her release from Theresienstadr and return to Denmark in 1945, Mrs Melanie Oppenhejm lived another thirty-seven years until her death in 1982. Her account of life in that concentration camp focuses on the daily experiences of the hapless victims of Nazi cruelty, but she says little about her own sufferings and is much more concerned with those of her fellow-prisoners. Her story, though not intended as a scholarly or historical record, closely reflects what is now known about that infamous place.' He concludes: 'Her story, taken in conjunction with the travail and fate of men such as !Rabbi Leo] Baeck and !Paul] Eppstein cannot but be read with emotion.' Mrs Oppenhejm survived together with the two of her four children who were also deported and her husband Merits, 'a senior member of the Danish judicial system ... who had for decades aC[ed, inter alia, as legal adviser to the German embassy in Denmark' - as her son, Ralph Oppenhejm, writes in his preface. Theo·esienstadt concludes with a selection from the photographs and illustra­ tions supplied by Ralph Oppenhejm. It joins earlier Menard books - memoirs and a diary, poetry and literary criticism - telling of experiences in occupied Europe in World War Two.

MENARD PRESS 8The Oaks Woodside Avenue London NI2 8AR ce/\fax 020 8446 5571 THE JEWISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

EDITOR: Judith Freedman

VOLUME FORTY-THREE 2oor r

Published by 1tiaurice Freedman Research Trust Ltd

"9 CONTENTS Book Received I 18 Fieldwork Among Hassidicjews: Book Reviews 92 (vforal Challenges and Missed Chronicle I 12 Opportunities~)! lVilliam Sha.ffir 53 Conflict, Adjustment, and The Kibbutz: Comings and Compromise: The Case of a Goings h;' Harold Pollins 86 Yemenite ~vloshav by RacheL Notes on Contributors "9 Slwrahy 37 Notice to Contributors 4 Defining Antiscmitism: The Zionism and the Jewish People, Goldsmid Libel Trial, I 9 I 7- I 9 18-1960: From :Minority to 19 I 8 ~V Edna Brad low 70 Hegemony lry JY D. Rubinstein 5 BOOKS REVIEWED Cohen, A. and Susser, B., Israel Rockaway, R. A., But He J.Vas and the PoliticJ of]ewish Identity 92 Good to His 1\1other: The Lil)eJ and Kershen, A. ]., ed., Language, Crimes rif]ewish Gangsters 105 Labour and 1\1igration 94 Stratton, J., Coming Out Jeu..Jish: :ivlassil, S. \V., ed., The]ewiJh }far Constructing Ambivalent Identities 108 Book 2001,5761-5762 98 l\Iedawar, J. and Pyke, D., Hitler's Gift: Scientists J.Vho fled }fa:d Germa'!)' 103 AUTHORS OF ARTICLES BradlO\v, E. 70 Shaffir, \V. 53 Pollins, H. 86 Sharaby, R. 37 Rubinstein, \V. D. 5 AUTHORS OF BOOK REVIEWS

Djamour,J. g8 Rubinstein, H. L. !Oj Finestein, I. 103 Rubinstein, \V. D. 92 Pollins, H. 94. 108

120