Jewish assimilation
Thursday I went to the first of a three-part lecture series given at the AACI by Prof. Shlomo Sharan, a retired Professor of Tel Aviv University. Dr. Sharan is originally from Milwaukee and has several degrees in different areas (psychology, Hebrew) but specializes in Jewish history. His talk today was on "the collapse of traditional Jewish society in Europe" due to assimilation. Dr. Sharan based much of his analysis on the work of his former mentor Yehezkel Kaufman and his study "Exile and alienation: a sociological-historical study of the question of Jewry's fate from antiquity to today" (1932).
From the end of the 18th century onwards attitudes of both Jews and gentiles began to change, resulting in political assimilation. Acceptance by the gentile world allowed the Jews to come out of their all-encompassing Jewish world (ghetto), in which religion, culture (including language) and nationality were all wrapped up into one. Particularly the decision in 1805 by the Sanhedrin assembled in Paris by order of Napoleon resulted in the concept of French Jews becoming "Frenchmen of the Mosaic persuasion." This concept spread throughout Europe as the enlightenment, that accepted the Jews into the general Christian and increasingly secular society, resulting in robbing of Jews of their national character. Only after the Holocaust with the success of Zionism in re-establishing a Jewish State was this political assimilation reversed.
Another form of assimilation was cultural assimilation as a result of the wider European society giving Jews rights like all other citizens. These cultural changes resulted in the closing of Yeshivot throughout Europe and the release of what would have been Jews brought up in the traditional Orthodox manner into general society, where many assimilated. It should be noted that all minorities assimilate into the greater society, this is a general phenomenon. Being able to participate in general society, its language, literature, theater and politics, robbed the Jews of their cultural cohesion. Certainly a lot of it remained, but in those cases where Jews were forced to convert, either under Islam or Christianity, the loss of cultural ties became complete. In Germany, conversion to Christianity became the path to social success, but in other regions Jews rarely actually converted to Christianity, rather they assimilated culturally. Some became identified with other tribes, adopting Hungarian, Czech or other nationality as their main national and cultural identity.
In the USSR ironically there was a partial reversal of this process. Jews like all other nationalities, under Stalin's definition of nationality, had to carry ID cards that specified their nationality and it was "Jewish." So Jews who had notionally rejected all ties with their Jewishness in order to become true communists were nevertheless labelled as Jews. This was similar to the ideology of the Nazis who labeled as Jews anyone who had at least one Jewish grandparent, thus making the definition racist.
Also, up until modern times, totally assimilated Jews are often anti-Jewish in order to emphasize their alienation from Jewishness and to express their universalism. Thus, there are academics in Israeli universities who oppose the establishment of a Jewish State and who act as pro-Palestinian agents, and this is taking the process of Jewish assimilation into European culture to its extreme logical conclusion. However, one must note that these people are a small although vociferous minority.
So the breakdown of traditional Jewish society in Europe resulted in robbing the Jews of both their national and cultural identity, leaving mainly their religion as the residual determinant of their Jewish identity. For those who gave this up too, their Jewish identity became shallow indeed, perhaps remaining only gastronomic Jews, or was replaced by Zionism.
From the end of the 18th century onwards attitudes of both Jews and gentiles began to change, resulting in political assimilation. Acceptance by the gentile world allowed the Jews to come out of their all-encompassing Jewish world (ghetto), in which religion, culture (including language) and nationality were all wrapped up into one. Particularly the decision in 1805 by the Sanhedrin assembled in Paris by order of Napoleon resulted in the concept of French Jews becoming "Frenchmen of the Mosaic persuasion." This concept spread throughout Europe as the enlightenment, that accepted the Jews into the general Christian and increasingly secular society, resulting in robbing of Jews of their national character. Only after the Holocaust with the success of Zionism in re-establishing a Jewish State was this political assimilation reversed.
Another form of assimilation was cultural assimilation as a result of the wider European society giving Jews rights like all other citizens. These cultural changes resulted in the closing of Yeshivot throughout Europe and the release of what would have been Jews brought up in the traditional Orthodox manner into general society, where many assimilated. It should be noted that all minorities assimilate into the greater society, this is a general phenomenon. Being able to participate in general society, its language, literature, theater and politics, robbed the Jews of their cultural cohesion. Certainly a lot of it remained, but in those cases where Jews were forced to convert, either under Islam or Christianity, the loss of cultural ties became complete. In Germany, conversion to Christianity became the path to social success, but in other regions Jews rarely actually converted to Christianity, rather they assimilated culturally. Some became identified with other tribes, adopting Hungarian, Czech or other nationality as their main national and cultural identity.
In the USSR ironically there was a partial reversal of this process. Jews like all other nationalities, under Stalin's definition of nationality, had to carry ID cards that specified their nationality and it was "Jewish." So Jews who had notionally rejected all ties with their Jewishness in order to become true communists were nevertheless labelled as Jews. This was similar to the ideology of the Nazis who labeled as Jews anyone who had at least one Jewish grandparent, thus making the definition racist.
Also, up until modern times, totally assimilated Jews are often anti-Jewish in order to emphasize their alienation from Jewishness and to express their universalism. Thus, there are academics in Israeli universities who oppose the establishment of a Jewish State and who act as pro-Palestinian agents, and this is taking the process of Jewish assimilation into European culture to its extreme logical conclusion. However, one must note that these people are a small although vociferous minority.
So the breakdown of traditional Jewish society in Europe resulted in robbing the Jews of both their national and cultural identity, leaving mainly their religion as the residual determinant of their Jewish identity. For those who gave this up too, their Jewish identity became shallow indeed, perhaps remaining only gastronomic Jews, or was replaced by Zionism.
posted by Jack Cohen at 1:23 PM
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