Andrew Goodman,Michael Schwerner,and American Jewish Memory

Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, murdered in Mississippi in 1964, have been depicted as “Jewish martyrs” of the civil rights movement. In fact, both men denied that their Jewish ancestry influenced their decision to go to Mississippi. Instead, the imagining of Goodman and Schwerner as Jews emerged out of the need of liberal Jews to show that the fates of Jews and blacks were intertwined.     

Ethnicity and Politics: Cohesion, Division and British Jews

Structural, cultural, psychological and materialist theories support the proposition that political cohesion and division in ethnic groups are a function of ethnic cohesion and division generally. The proposition is applied to British Jews, and data from the first nationally representative survey of British Jews are employed to test an empirical hypothesis linking strong manifestations of ethnicity to Conservative partisanship. Results from multinomial logistic regression analysis support the hypothesis, and transformations to probabilities demonstrate the strong effect of ethnic divisions on party divisions. Comparisons are drawn between British Jews and other British ethnic minorities, and between British and American Jews.     

Book Reviews

Classes and Cultures: England 1918–1951 (Ross McKibbin) Richard Hoggart
London Conference on Nazi Gold: Lancaster House, 2–4 December 1997 (Foreign and Commonwealth Office); Switzerland and Gold Transactions in the Second World War: Interim Report (Independent Commission of Experts on Switzerland in the Second World War); Nazi Gold: The British and Allied Attempts to Deal with Loot from the Second World War and the Implications for the Tripartite Gold Commission (Holocaust Education Trust); Ex-Enemy Jews: The Fate of the Assets in Britain of the Holocaust Victims and Survivors (Holocaust Education Trust); Nazi Gold: Information from the British Archives ; Nazi Gold: Information from the British Archives, Part II ; British Policy towards Enemy Property during and after the Second World War (Foreign and Commonwealth Office); Hitler's Secret Bankers: How Switzerland Profited from Nazi Genocide (Adam Lebor); Blood Money: The Swiss, the Nazis and the Looted Billions (Tom Bower); The Swiss, the Gold and the Dead: How Swiss Bankers Financed the Nazi War Machine (Jean Ziegler, trans. John Brownjohn); The Rape of Europa (Lynn Nicholas); The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Seize the World's Greatest Works of Art (Hector Feliciano); Treasure Hoard: A New York Times Reporter Tracks the Quedlinburg Hoard (William H. Honan) Donald Cameron Watt
The Politics of Risk Society (edited by Jane Franklin); Social Policy and Social Justice (edited by Jane Franklin) Leonard Tivey
The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style (Tom Paulin) Mark Garnett
The Open Cage: The Ordeal of the Irian Jaya Hostages (Daniel Start) Donald Cameron Watt
The Search for Normality: National Identity and Historical Consciousness in Germany since 1800 (Stefan Berger) Joyce Crick     

The Strength of Perpetrators—The Holocaust in Western Europe, 1940–1944

On average, two‐thirds of the Jews in German‐controlled territory during World War II did not survive. However, the degree of victimization varied considerably, depending on the area examined. In Poland, the Baltic States, the Protectorate of Bohemia‐Moravia, Greece, the territories of Yugoslavia and the Netherlands, more than 70 percent of Jews were killed. In Hungary and the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, the number of Jews killed was close to the average. In Belgium, Norway, France, Italy, Luxembourg, and Denmark, a majority of the Jews survived. At the same time, the structure of Nazi rule over Europe before and during World War II was characterized by a wide variety of administrative regimes. So far, research has not systematically linked different degrees of Jewish victimization to different kinds of administrative regimes. Did different forms of administrative regimes result in differing degrees of Jewish victimization during the Holocaust? The present paper presents both evidence and an operationalization for a related general hypothesis.     

Anti‐Zionist politics and political antisemitism in Britain, 1920–1924

Anti‐Zionism in Britain in the early 1920s was inextricably bound up with an assault on the Jews as Jews which obscured the substantive issues of Palestine and Jewish‐Arab relations. As a result, Jews were later inclined to disregard the case anti‐Zionism made.     

External and Domestic Determinants of Education Expansion: How Germany, Japan, and Switzerland Have Varied

How do economically successful countries like Germany, Japan and Switzerland differ in their post-primary education policies? After identifying great variations in the structure and capacity of secondary and higher education sectors, explanations are sought in terms of domestic and inter-national factors. Switzerland and Japan emerge as polar cases in how political variables - such as centralism-federalism, parties and bureaucracies - affected choice of vehicles and extent of educational expansion. Party influence is most clearcut in Germany, but varies by sector. Whereas German and Japanese reform agendas changed in the aftermath of occupation experiences, Switzerland went its own way until prospects for European integration induced greater accommodation to the training and credential practices of its neighbors.     

Expressive voting and identity: evidence from a case study of a group of U.S. voters

The source of evidence on expressive voting has been experiments, in general conducted with students. In Why are Jews Liberals? Norman Podhoretz describes behavior that substantiates the hypothesis that people vote expressively to confirm identity. He does not use the terminology of expressive voting but his study is readily interpretable in an expressive-behavior context. Podhoretz describes liberal Jews in the U.S. as expressively voting contrary to self-interest to confirm allegiance to liberalism, which he terms a ??new religion??. Traditional Jews do not require the identity of the new religion and vote in accord with their self-interest. I propose another interpretation of voting by liberal Jews in which expressive utility is not contrary to self-interest.     

The Black body and the Jewish body: a comparison of medical images

Hödl attempts to show how deeply the medical views of Blacks and Jews were embedded in racial theories in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Concepts of racial distinctiveness formed the framework that purportedly explained a specific liability of African Americans and Jews to various ailments. In particular, he compares the prevailing perception of the susceptibility of Jews and Blacks to tuberculosis in the United States from the 1840s to the early twentieth century, and shows that physicians advanced widely differing explanations for the proclivity to this disease, explanations that fall into three distinct periods. Within the same time span, however, there is continuity in the concepts of the 'sick Negro' and the 'healthy Jew'. The aetiologies were largely dependent on stereotypes of the bodily constructs of Jews and Blacks. Hödl thereby demonstrates the interdependence of racism and medicine.     

Federalism and Party Interaction in West Germany, Switzerland, and Austria

The federalism established in the constitutions of the FederalRepublic of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, in addition tothe common language of these countries, distinguishes them fromthe other West European countries, which lean toward centrallyorganized states. After examining the historical foundationand development of the federal systems in the three countries,the article analyzes the segmentation, federal-state interaction,and intraparty effects of political parties in them. While federalismis strengthened by the heterogeneity and regional solidarityof the political parties in Switzerland, federalism has becomea pure "party federalism" in the Federal Republic of Germanyand Austria.     

Continuity and Change in the Constitutional Experience of the German Jews

Despite the progress of Emancipation in the nineteenth century,German Jews were required to to legally recognized Jewish communities.Even after this requirement was lifted, Jewish communal liferemained strong. The community structure that the Prussian stateexpected the Jews to implement was modeled after German civiladministration. This framework, however, resembled both medievalGerman and medieval Jewish models. Thus, German Jews, whilemodernizing their own communal institutions, continued to maintainboth their own and their German neighbors' political traditions.The German Jewish communal constitutions attest to a Jewishpolitical tradition of adaptation to prevailing gentile norms,as well as retention of ancient Jewish elements.     

Legislation against Hate propaganda

Over the last decade there has been much academic and journalistic probing of the Malaysian prime minister's expressed attitudes towards Jews. That attention was renewed in 1997 following Dr Mahathir's recent denunciations of international currency speculation, as personified by George Soros. Yet at the same time that Dr Mahathir and his followers express their adverse views concerning Jews, there has also been evident in contemporary Malaysia, especially among the Malay political elite surrounding Dr Mahathir, a paradoxical fascination with the idea of 'diaspora', a desire to discover and even invent or create a 'Malay diaspora'. Understanding this peculiar 'diaspora-envy' may provide some insight into the modern Malay aspirations towards cosmopolitanism and 'global reach' that Dr Mahathir, with widespread domestic support, projects internationally. This 'diaspora-envy' seems the obverse side of Dr Mahathir's more direct and controversial views concerning Jews, and may throw some fresh light on them. Instead of providing evidence of classical political antisemitism, the views of Dr Mahathir and other leading Malaysians about Jews are the by-product of their views about other issues, especially the residue of a generally traditional religious education.     

Jewish Religiosity and Political Attitudes in the United States and Israel

Does religious commitment have a common political impact across national frontiers? To date, that question has been explored empirically only for Roman Catholics, who might be expected to behave similarly because of centralizing resources in their tradition. This article explores the extent of transnational political attitudes among Jews in the United States and Israel, two groups with less centralized authority structures and radically different religious situations. Parallel surveys of Jews in the United States and Israel, analyzed by OLS regression with the slope dummy approach, indicate that Jewish religiosity has a common influence on most political issues but often has much sharper effects in one society than the other. Given our expectation that Jews would exhibit lower levels of transnational similarity than Roman Catholics, the findings reinforce scholars who perceive religion as a potent transnational political factor.     

Foreword

Recent political statements have revitalized the debate over Fascist antisemitism and the response by Italians to Benito Mussolini’s anti-Jewish campaign. Luconi offers an overview of the current reassessment of the attitude of Italians towards Jews during Il Duce’s rule in English- and Italian-language scholarship. Contrary to previous findings that have tended to emphasize the Italian people’s effective contribution to efforts to help Jews under the Fascist regime and the Nazi occupation of their country, more recent research has stressed that, notwithstanding remarkable exceptions, Italians—both inside and outside the Fascist hierarchy—were far from being immune to antisemitism and, therefore, did not refrain from actively participating in the discrimination, persecution and deportation of Jews in the pre-war and war years.     

Rebuttal versus Unmasking: Legal Strategy in R. v. Zundel

Conventional scholarly wisdom has it that most Italian Americans in the United States were loyal supporters of the policies of Fascism in the inter-war years but eventually rejected the antisemitic measures that Benito Mussolini's regime adopted in their ancestral country in 1938. Contrary to such an interpretation, Luconi argues that many Italian Americans themselves held antisemitic attitudes and, therefore, did not distance themselves from Fascism after Mussolini launched his campaign against Italian Jews. He also contends that these attitudes resulted less from an ideological commitment to Fascism than from both the strained relations between Italian Americans and Jewish Americans, and the antisemitic climate of opinion that characterized American society in the 1930s. Italian Americans and Jews were partners in the labour movement and the Democratic Party. Yet the former resented the latter's distrust in Italian Americans' labour militancy, as well as the earlier rise of Jews in the hierarchies of the unions and the Democratic Party. Furthermore, Italian Americans and Jews competed for jobs, political patronage, cheap housing and relief benefits, especially during the Depression years. Such ethnic rivalries and the appeal of right-wing organizations to Italian Americans contributed to make the latter prone to antisemitism. As a result, few Americans of Italian descent came out against the racial policy of the Fascist regime.     

Tories’ victory— a “signal from England”

The British government did little to help Jews in Nazi‐ruled territory during the Holocaust. This inaction was motivated not so much by muddled bureaucracy as by anti‐Jewish feeling among government representatives. Louise London analyses evidence from government records to show the extent of fears of the threat to national security which refugee Jews were seen to present.     

Politics of God or Politics of Man? The Role of Religion and Deprivation in Predicting Support for Political Violence in Israel

This study examines the associations between religious affiliation and religiosity and support for political violence through a nationwide sample of Israeli Jews and Muslims. Based on structural equation modeling, the findings show that by and large Muslims are more supportive of political violence than Jews and more religious persons are less supportive of political violence. Deprivation, however, was found to mediate these relations, showing that the more deprived – whether Muslims or Jews, religious or non-religious persons – are more supportive of political violence. The explanatory strength of religion and deprivation combined in this manner was found to be stronger than any of these variables on their own. The findings cast doubt on negative stereotypes both of Islam and of religiosity as promoting political violence. They suggest that governments which want peace at home, in Israel as elsewhere, would do well to ensure that ethnic and religious differences are not translated into, and compounded by, wide socio-economic gaps.     

Institutionen, Interessen, Netzwerke Unternehmensverflechtung im internationalen Vergleich

In many countries large companies are connected to one another by corporate networks. This analysis presents the analysis of network structures in six countries: Germany, France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. Networks form part of an institutional structure of the market whose aim is to reduce transaction costs. Networks enable firms to coordinate their behavior and regulate competition. Corporate networks can be compared with interest organizations (e.g., corporatism). They serve to improve the collective capacity of firms for self-regulation. The more comprehensive the networks and the more effective the mechanisms by which interests are filtered, the less their scope to organize narrow sectional interests. The structure of corporate networks is different in different countries. In Germany and Switzerland, for instance, large firms and banks come together in the networks (Konzerne); in France the large companies, the state and the financial companies. The predominant network configuration is influenced in each country by its specific culture, traditions and experience.     

Political realignment of British Jews: Testing competing explanations

This paper shows that the historical association of the British Jewish community with the Labour party is a thing of the past, and that a large majority now support the Conservatives. We test competing explanations for this realignment; (i) socio-economic progression, (ii) that perceptions of anti-Jewish discrimination no longer align British Jews with Labour given recent antisemitism scandals, and finally (iii) perceptions of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who many identify as personally responsible for failing to address and even tacitly embracing antisemitism within Labour. We find evidence that Jewish voters identify a lot more as middle class and that they do not believe that antisemitic prejudice holds them back in society. Both of these factors make Labour less appealing to Jews than is the case for other minority groups. We also find that Jeremy Corbyn is disliked by Jews more than non-Jews, irrespective of how they feel towards Labour generally.     

‘The most ardent pro-Israel party’: pro-Israel attitudes and anti-antisemitism among populist radical-right parties in Europe

Since the turn of the millennium a growing number of European populist radical-right parties have taken to criticizing antisemitism and embracing Israel's cause in its conflict with the Palestinians. This development raises the question of whether, for the first time in European history, we are confronting radical-right politics that is not antisemitic. Kahmann’s article approaches this recent development on the extreme right-wing spectrum of European parties from an empirical perspective: he analyses the manner in which leading representatives of the Belgian Vlaams Belang (VB), the Sweden Democrats (SD) and the (now-defunct) German party Die Freiheit have articulated their anti-antisemitism and their solidarity with Israel, and the conclusions that are thereby suggested with regard to the underlying image of Jews and Israel. Kahmann's analysis shows that the pro-Israel and anti-antisemitic turn serves primarily as a pretext for fending off Muslim immigrants, which is claimed as a contribution to the security of the Jewish population. Furthermore, it shows that the right-wing ideal of an ethnically homogeneous nation results in the perception of Jews as members of a foreign nation and in the cultivation of stereotyped images of Jews. For these parties, the status of the Jewish population in the respective European states remains therefore precarious: Jews are merely granted the status of a tolerated minority as long as they are not considered to pose any threat to the ‘native’ culture. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians serves in this context as a convenient screen on which to project the popular right-wing narrative of a battle between the Judaeo-Christian Occident and the Muslim world.     

Continuity and change in anti-Jewish prejudice: the transmission of the anti-talmudic texts of Sixtus of Siena

ABSTRACT

One of the main elements common to both the mediaeval anti-Jewish tradition and modern antisemitism is the use of Jewish religious texts—particularly the Talmud—in order to ‘prove’ that Jews pose a threat to non-Jews. Bravo López considers how a series of anti-talmudic texts written by Sixtus of Siena in the sixteenth century were disseminated and used, up to the beginning of the twentieth century, to legitimize a threatening image of Judaism and Jews. Despite the changing historical context, that image remained virtually intact throughout the centuries, allowing these same texts to be used time and time again to ‘prove’ that it was a faithful reflection of reality. Although historical changes can account for differences in the specific motives that drove each author to use the texts of Sixtus of Siena, those authors all shared the same image of Judaism and the Jews, and they considered these texts—cited as an authoritative source, legitimizing their point of view—to be effective in support of their cause.