'An Unfortunate Coincidence': Jews and Jewishness in Twentieth-century English Judicial Discourse

This paper explores the neglected area of representations of Jews and Jewishness in English legal cases. In considering judicial knowledge of ‘the Jew’, I ask three primary questions. First, how do English judges understand and represent ‘the Jew’ and in relation to what material factors do these understandings and representations change? Second, how do English judges construct racial knowledge, what rhetorical technologies are fashioned and deployed? Third, are the effects of contemporary judicial racializations of Jewishness different in substance from earlier ones? The purpose of this paper is to study the encounter between English judges and ‘the Jew’ in the twentieth century, eschewing a reading that centres ‘antisemitism’ or ‘discrimination’ in favour of one that focuses on the complex and contradictory narratives in these judgments and the kinds of work these narratives do.     

Jewish–Gentile intermarriage in pre-war Amsterdam

Intermarriage is generally regarded as the litmus test in the process of assimilation of ethnic-minority groups. The Jewish community in Amsterdam was a religious minority. When a Jew married a Gentile it was assumed that Judaism lost a family. Odds ratio calculations based on marriage tables for 1911–1941 show that the rate of intermarriage among Jews was much lower than among Catholics, Protestants and religious unaffiliated. Although the Jewish community might still be more homogeneous than the Protestant and Catholic communities, it was rapidly assimilating as the log odds ratios for Jews dropped more heavily. While mutual aversion is reflected in the remaining high log odds ratios for Jewish–Catholic marriages, Jewish–Protestant marriages and Jewish–unaffiliated marriages increased because of the higher propensity among Protestants to marry a Jew and the higher propensity among Jews to marry an unaffiliated spouse from the 1920s onwards. Next, we created life courses for a sample of 480 descendants from Jewish grandparents living in Amsterdam in 1941 of whom we know were married to a Gentile or to a Jew. The collected data from the Amsterdam registry allow us to test several hypotheses on preferences, opportunities and third parties in a logistic regression analysis. One's own affiliation significantly influenced the preference to marry a Gentile or a Jew. Successive marriage cohorts showed a higher chance to marry a Gentile among those who had Jewish parents at birth. A similar but weaker effect is found for those born in the old Jewish neighborhood. These differences in effect on later marriage cohorts indicate that religious and social barriers within the Jewish community had largely diminished. Opportunities like the social network of the mother and the living district during one's adolescents' age also significantly influenced the choice of a spouse.     

Ethnic Origins and the Disposition of Delinquents in Israel

Theoretical considerations lead to the hypothesis that the dispositions of juvenile cases affecting Oriental Jews will be harsher than those affecting European Jews in Israel. Further, that Arab juveniles will be dealt with more harshly than will either European or Oriental Jews. Analysis of official delinquency data reveals that this is the tendency. However, the authoritarian structure of the Arab community rather than prejudice explains the difference in handling Jewish or Arabic cases.     

Jewish–Gentile intermarriage in pre-war Amsterdam

Intermarriage is generally regarded as the litmus test in the process of assimilation of ethnic-minority groups. The Jewish community in Amsterdam was a religious minority. When a Jew married a Gentile it was assumed that Judaism lost a family. Odds ratio calculations based on marriage tables for 1911–1941 show that the rate of intermarriage among Jews was much lower than among Catholics, Protestants and religious unaffiliated. Although the Jewish community might still be more homogeneous than the Protestant and Catholic communities, it was rapidly assimilating as the log odds ratios for Jews dropped more heavily. While mutual aversion is reflected in the remaining high log odds ratios for Jewish–Catholic marriages, Jewish–Protestant marriages and Jewish–unaffiliated marriages increased because of the higher propensity among Protestants to marry a Jew and the higher propensity among Jews to marry an unaffiliated spouse from the 1920s onwards. Next, we created life courses for a sample of 480 descendants from Jewish grandparents living in Amsterdam in 1941 of whom we know were married to a Gentile or to a Jew. The collected data from the Amsterdam registry allow us to test several hypotheses on preferences, opportunities and third parties in a logistic regression analysis. One's own affiliation significantly influenced the preference to marry a Gentile or a Jew. Successive marriage cohorts showed a higher chance to marry a Gentile among those who had Jewish parents at birth. A similar but weaker effect is found for those born in the old Jewish neighborhood. These differences in effect on later marriage cohorts indicate that religious and social barriers within the Jewish community had largely diminished. Opportunities like the social network of the mother and the living district during one's adolescents' age also significantly influenced the choice of a spouse.     

Genetic variation of three tetrameric tandem repeats in four distinct Israeli ethnic groups.

The allele frequency distributions of three STR loci amplified by PCR have been studied in four Israeli communities: Ashkenazi Jews and three non-Ashkenazi groups, namely Moroccan, Yemenite, and Ethiopian Jews. The loci analyzed were CSF1PO, TPOX, and HUMTHO1. The typing was performed in sequencing polyacrylamide gels under denaturing conditions that could separate alleles with differences of a single base. The population data were analyzed with respect to Hardy-Weinberg (H-W) equilibrium and found that all loci meet the H-W expectations. No-ticeable differences were encountered between the four Jewish ethnic groups studied hereby indicating the importance of establishing a local database to be used in human identity testing in these different Israeli Jewish groups.     

Between commandments and laws: Religiosity, political ideology, and legal obedience in Israel

This paper presents three surveys designed to examine the effect ofreligiosity and political ideology on legal disobedience among Israeli citizens. In addition to samples of the general Jewish population (N = 1,728), thesurveys included samples of three groups characterized by a combinationof religiosity and right-wing political orientation: Yeshiva (religiousseminary) students (N = 464), ultra-orthodox Jews (N = 217), andsettlers in the occupied territories (N = 361). The results show thatacceptance of the rule of law is weaker among ultra-orthodox andright-wing respondents. Furthermore, compared to the general populationof Jews, Yeshiva students and ultra-orthodox Jews expressed lower levelsof commitment to legal obedience. Comparison of attitudes before andafter the occurrence of controversial legal and political events indicated thatsuch events have a generalized effect on legal obedience.     

A POLITICAL THREAT MODEL OF INTERGROUP VIOLENCE: JEWS IN PRE–WORLD WAR II GERMANY*

Research often links minority group size and economic conditions with levels of intergroup violence, in line with facets of group threat and structural theories of intergroup crime. Building on the group threat perspective, we investigate the political antecedents of intergroup violence. This work tests the theoretical premise that violence against minority groups increases with the strength of political parties associated with minority group interests, independent of group size and economic conditions. This model is tested empirically for the case of violence against Jews in pre–World War II Germany, where Jews constituted a small proportion of the German population but were often associated with the leadership of the political left. Findings suggest that the gross domestic product and Jewish population size did not have predicted effects on major violent incidents against Jews. It was in fact the rising strength of leftist political parties that ignited anti‐Semitic violence. Other venues where this model could be applied are proposed, and the findings are discussed in the context of intergroup violence and theories emphasizing minority group threat.     

The other side of the Anne Frank story: The Dutch role in the persecution of the Jews in World War Two

Contrary to their historical reputation there were only a few Dutch citizens who rescued Jews during World War II by providing their homes as a shelter. Of all the West European countries occupied by the Germans, the number of Jewish casualties was the highest in The Netherlands. Before the occupation there were approximately 140,000 Jews living in The Netherlands, and of that total at least 109,000 were murdered. When the war was over many war criminals and Nazi collaborators were punished. This did not include, however, Dutch civil servants and many of the police and train conductors who were all part of the Holocaust machine. They were recruited from the large middle-ground of a population of mainly bystanders. In addition, Dutch criminology has been conspicuously silent about the Holocaust. Therefore, I shall discuss the following issues as contributory to the Holocaust: (1) the denunciation process; (2) the attitude of The Netherlands' bureaucracy in general; and, (3) the negative impact of the actions of officials in positions of the highest power such as the Queen (who fled to Britain), members of the Supreme Court and Chiefs of Police.     

The Jews of early modern Marburg, 1640s—1800: A case study in family and household organization

This article examines Jewish household and family organization in a middle-sized German city, the Upper Hessian regional center of Marburg, the population of which ranged from 2500 to 6000 from the Thirty Years War to the end of the 18th century. Some general hypotheses about population development, household structure, and family life conveniently summarized by Toch [Toch, M. (1995). Aspects of stratification in early modern German Jewry: Population history and village Jews. In R. P. Hsia & H. Lehmann (Eds.). In and out of the ghetto: Jewish-Gentile relations in late medieval and early modern Germany (pp. 77-89). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] serve as an organizational frame for the case study. In Toch's view, Jews' comparative wealth, as well as governmental restrictions on their settlement and marriage in central Europe, led to their having larger and more complex households than those of the Christian majority. While household enumerations over time confirm several of Toch's observations, especially the larger size of Jewish families, neither Hessian settlement policy nor local Marburg opposition prevented the Jewish minority of about 1% from keeping pace with general population growth. Moreover, Jews did not respond to their regulated living conditions and status as cultural outsiders with a family organization exhibiting remarkably more internal complexity than did Christian households.     

Hate Speech,Group Libel,and “Ford's Megaphone”

Woeste, Victoria Saker. 2012 . Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Pp. xv, 408. $55.00, cloth; $24.95, paper. This essay on Victoria Saker Woeste's Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech (2012) emphasizes that what made Ford's broadsides against Jews in the 1920s so dangerous was technology—his command of an unparalleled network of distribution, through his nationwide Ford dealerships. In addition, at the time of Ford's libels, US legal culture had not yet absorbed the idea that ideological and psychological subordination of minority groups was the principal harm worked by what would later be called “hate speech.”     

Social structure of the Jewish quarter in Vienna during the liberal era (1850–1900)

The article examines the nature of residential and coresidential patterns in the second half of the 19th century in a district of Vienna known as Leopoldstadt, which had a large Jewish population. Analysis of a database from this district, paying attention to occupation and class variables, suggests that the Jewish population therein was more mixed than traditional interpretations suggest, and that the concentration of Jews there can plausibly be explained mainly by reference to residential choices made by Jews to live near an economic infrastructure that catered to their religious and cultural needs. The patterns identified in the data suggest further that in interpreting the residential patterns of the city it is necessary to conceptualize the problem as one of interaction between religion, economics, and residential choice.     

Social structure of the Jewish quarter in Vienna during the liberal era (1850–1900)

The article examines the nature of residential and coresidential patterns in the second half of the 19th century in a district of Vienna known as Leopoldstadt, which had a large Jewish population. Analysis of a database from this district, paying attention to occupation and class variables, suggests that the Jewish population therein was more mixed than traditional interpretations suggest, and that the concentration of Jews there can plausibly be explained mainly by reference to residential choices made by Jews to live near an economic infrastructure that catered to their religious and cultural needs. The patterns identified in the data suggest further that in interpreting the residential patterns of the city it is necessary to conceptualize the problem as one of interaction between religion, economics, and residential choice.     

The Jews of early modern Marburg, 1640s—1800

This article examines Jewish household and family organization in a middle-sized German city, the Upper Hessian regional center of Marburg, the population of which ranged from 2500 to 6000 from the Thirty Years War to the end of the 18th century. Some general hypotheses about population development, household structure, and family life conveniently summarized by Toch [Toch, M. (1995). Aspects of stratification in early modern German Jewry: Population history and village Jews. In R. P. Hsia & H. Lehmann (Eds.). In and out of the ghetto: Jewish-Gentile relations in late medieval and early modern Germany (pp. 77-89). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] serve as an organizational frame for the case study. In Toch's view, Jews' comparative wealth, as well as governmental restrictions on their settlement and marriage in central Europe, led to their having larger and more complex households than those of the Christian majority. While household enumerations over time confirm several of Toch's observations, especially the larger size of Jewish families, neither Hessian settlement policy nor local Marburg opposition prevented the Jewish minority of about 1% from keeping pace with general population growth. Moreover, Jews did not respond to their regulated living conditions and status as cultural outsiders with a family organization exhibiting remarkably more internal complexity than did Christian households.     

Jews’ and Arabs’ Perceptions of Inter-Group and Intra-Group Date Rape

The study examined the influence of three factors on rape responsibility attributions: subjects’ gender, subjects’ ethnicity, and victim and perpetrator’s ethnicity. Participants were 247 undergraduate students in Israel (164 Jews and 83 Arabs). The most revealing findings are connected with the threefold interaction between the factors studied. It was found that Arab males and females, members of the minority ethnic group, tended to assign more responsibility to a victim involved in inter-group relationships, whereas Jewish males and females, members of the dominant majority group, attributed more responsibility to a victim involved in intra-group relationships. More specifically, Arab males attributed more responsibility to an Arab victim raped by a Jew, while Arab females attributed more responsibility to a Jewish victim raped by an Arab. Among Jews, males attributed more responsibility to an Arab victim raped by an Arab, and females attributed more responsibility to a Jewish victim raped by a Jew. Several ways to explain these interactions are suggested.     

Allele frequencies of seven short tandem repeat loci in the Ashkenazi Jewish population

Allele frequencies of seven short tandem repeats (STRs) (THO1, CSF1PO, CD4, LPL, PLA2A, F13A01 and ARA) were obtained from a sample of unrelated Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel.     

Why black prisoners seldom try to escape from American penal institutions: A humanistic perspective

Black inmates attempt to escape prison much less frequently than do white inmates. Empirical research attempting to delineate reasons for the differential escape rate of blacks to whites is almost nonexistent. The purpose of the present paper is to examine this difference from a humanistic approach by examining another subculture (European Jews who were victims of the Holocaust) where historical incanceration pattenrs and cultural ethos historically anticipates those of black inmates. Thishistorical culture of blacks in America is also explored in order to further understand why black inmates seldom try to escape from prison.     

The Fragility of Law: Anti-Jewish Decrees,Constitutional Patriotism,and Collaboration Belgium 1940–1944

In October and November 1940, the German Military Command which ruled conquered Belgium, introduced a series of measures aimed at the identification and exclusion of the Jews of that country. The Belgian government of the day refused to allow the measures to be incorporated into Belgian law, but did permit, under their reading of the Hague Convention, government departments and local administrations to assist in implementing the German anti-Jewish Decrees. The Brussels Bar, Prosecutors and Court of Cassation refused to accept the authority of the Occupier to violate basic rights guaranteed under the Belgian Constitution. Officials in Antwerp, on the other hand, struck all lawyers identified as "Jews" from the Roll. This article examines these instances of "constitutional patriotism" and "constitutional betrayal" by these actors in the Belgian legal system, and offers some preliminary discussion of important questions about our historical and current understandings of legality, legitimacy and citizenship in light of this part of the Belgian experience of law under Nazi occupation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Reviews

Books reviewed:
Gastwirth Statistical Science in the Courtroom
Fraser The Jews of the Channel Islands and the Rule of Law, 1940–1945: 'Quite Contrary to the Principles of British Justice'
Cretney Family Law: Essays for the New Millennium
Witteveen and van der Burg Rediscovering Fuller: Essays on Implicit Law and Institutional Design
Jørgensen The Responsibility of States for International Crimes     

Jewish population genetic data in 20 polymorphic loci

Frequency data of 20 polymorphisms (13 autosomal and 6 Y-chromosome STRs and the Alu-insertion YAP) were determined in a sample of 124 unrelated Jewish individuals from Ashkenazi, Sephardic, North African and Oriental origin. The a priori statistical power of the set of studied loci was highly discriminating (PD=1 in 2.393 E+15 individuals for autosomal STRs, and a probability of finding two unrelated males with the same haplotype of less than 0.01). Some significant population differences were registered between Jews and other Circummediterranean populations in Y-chromosome loci frequencies.     

Prestige,Networks, and Social Mobility Among Lawyers: A View from California of Woeste's book,Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech

Woeste, Victoria Saker. 2012 . Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech . Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press. Pp. 424. $48.95 cloth; $24.95 paper; $24.95 e‐book. In Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech (2012), Victoria Saker Woeste raises provocative questions for students of the legal profession. Aaron Sapiro, an Eastern European, Jewish immigrant to California, rose to international prominence through his corporate specialization in agricultural cooperatives. Our understanding of the social structure of the legal profession, based on studies of the East and Midwest, shows that for most of the twentieth century, the structure of the bar was highly stratified around markers of ethno‐religious status. The trajectory of Sapiro's career does not fit this story. A focus on the West generally or California in particular complicates our understanding of how factors such as ethno‐religious background, social networks, career mobility, and prestige interact.