Readings in Modern Jewish History

Short on cash this term to take another course at Edinburgh, I decided to enroll in the University of Pennsylvania's extension program and take a grad-level course in Jewish History. Unsurprisingly, it's pretty rigorous so far. It's very reading heavy, as the title would suggest. Plus, as a term paper, it'll be necessary to write a 20- to 25-page historiography on a topic of my choice. I was thinking about taking on the "uniqueness" argument over the Holocaust, which is probably the third biggest debate in the field following the Historikerstreit and intentionalism vs functionalism. I'll report on that matter when the time comes.

In the meantime, the weekly assignment for the course involves a five-minute in-class presentation on a prepared topic. The first such presentation I made on two chapters in David Sorkin's forthcoming book on emancipation. The chapters I worked on involve mass politics in the context of emancipation in the period from 1870 to 1914. Sorkin's basic argument is that emancipation is an ongoing project in Europe and the Ottoman Empire beginning around 1550. He breaks with the earlier east-west paradigm of European Jewish history and instead posits a sort of three-plus-one model of eastern, central, and western European Jewry (the latter including the U.S.), plus the Ottoman Empire.

Later today, discussion will ensue on the below short response to a question on Benjamin Nathans's book Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter With Late Imperial Russia. I'll post my work on Mondays this term. Enjoy

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2) How did the Russian government’s vision of Jewish integration into Russian society differ from that of Jewish intellectuals and communal leaders? And, inasmuch as both of those visions evolved over time, were there periods when they were more or less in sync, or at least capable of being harmonized? If not, what factors prevented it? How does this relate to the references to tension highlighted by Nathans throughout the text?

During the period under discussion, the position of the Russian government vis-à-vis Jewish integration varied from tsar to tsar and sometimes ministry to ministry. In this regard, the position of the government was far more dynamic than that of the intellectual and communal leaders, who favored an incremental approach of selective integration. Nathans writes that this form of integration was "designed to disperse certain 'useful' groups of Jews into Russia’s hierarchy of social estates" (p. 24). Among the key institutions playing a role in this process was the military, which offered the opportunity for the mainstreaming of Jewish men, albeit often at the expense of their identity as Jews, particularly in the earliest periods of Jewish conscription, when it was synonymous with cantonism. Later, after a number of Jewish elites had settled in St. Petersburg, Evzel Gintsburg, as one of the Jewish community's leaders, encouraged Jewish enlistment, including of his own sons. This call by Gintsburg coincided with a more liberal approach to integration adopted under Alexander II and his defense minister Dmitri Miliutin, where the prevailing wisdom called for the dissolution of specifically Jewish estates into the pre-existing social estates of the Russian Empire -- here within the larger context of a full military overhaul that instituted universal service regardless of nationality.

At the same time, it is important to note that the strategy and tactics of the integrationist Jewish elites could be at cross-purposes with the Jewish leadership in the Pale. With the wave of pogroms that descended on the Pale in the 1880s in particular, the two leaderships found themselves at cross purposes, with the Pale leadership arguing for emigration, which was diametrically opposed to integration, even when selective. At this time, the position of the Russian government was far closer to that of the Pale leadership, with the policies of Tsar Alexander III seeking to reverse the gains made under his father. An example here is the institution of quotas on Jewish enrollment at Russian universities. Whereas the quotas, as a "silent pogrom," had the effect on the Petersburg-dwelling elites of undoing some of the gains in this area since the 1860s, from the standpoint of the leadership back in the Pale, the quotas had the positive advantage of preventing a larger number of Jews from becoming fully acculturated by the Russian education system.

Therefore, the positions of the government and the Jewish leadership were most in sync or must conducive to harmonization under Alexander II. The tensions that prevented continued harmonization before and after the height of Jewish-Russian cooperation in selective integration were largely the aforementioned influence of the less integrationist Pale leadership and the reaction among the Russian general population of greater exposure to the Jewish population in the form of the integrated population, which unlike in most of the Pale could and did compete economically against the urban Russian population. This competition, coupled with religious anti-Semitism and a press often willing to stoke resentments, represented a reason for caution by both the government, which largely sought to avoid violence, and a portion of the Jewish population itself.

Softening the Ground

This post will probably be long and perhaps only tangentially connected to history, but it's important, I think, to write down some things I've seen going on. I'm not alone in having seen these things, but perhaps can offer a perspective not yet put forward. My topics will be two, one specific and one general. They are, respectively, Stefan Molyneux and authoritarianism.

On Molyneux much has been said. Rather than retread old ground, such as allegations of cultish behaviors, blatant lying, perhaps most notoriously on Joe Rogan's podcast, and rank hypocrisy against his own earnestly stated personal principles, it suffices here to say that, until a couple of years ago, Molyneux was marketing himself as an anarcho-capitalist or hard libertarian: lots of talk about free markets and rising tides lifting all boats. That sort of thing. Then, he took a disturbing turn, even for him.

Molyneux as a public figure has always been conservative and right wing (terms that intersect quite a bit but not entirely). However, the far right turn he's taken over the last few years is more sinister. He's begun broadcasting explicitly racist positions, including a lot of pieces on the race-IQ correlation, with his conclusion (unsurprisingly) being that this correlation is both overwhelmingly genetic and immutable. He's blended in quite a bit attacking Islam generally, a subject with which I perhaps disagree with him less but that nevertheless he paints with an overly broad brush. Therefore, when Trump emerged politically, Molyneux was almost immediately on board, jettisoning in practice certain principles that, at least in theory, he'd long held, such as laissez faire (Trump is a protectionist) and moral absolutism (think about it for a second).

Of course, Trumpists aren't rare and right wingers aren't experiencing a shortage on the Internet, where Molyneux primarily resides. What's disturbing about Molyneux's case is the mainstream attention that he has received. Leaving aside an appearance on his YouTube channel a few years ago by Noam Chomsky, during which Molyneux largely kept his reactionary views to himself, Molyneux's right-wing guests have run the gamut from mainstream conservatives (e.g., Dave Rubin) to fringe mainstream figures (Ann Coulter) to alt-right mainstays (Mike Cernovich). As a result, Molyneux now gets retweeted by the President's sons, and this is where the danger really lies.

Before the general situation I mentioned above, however, a final specific point about Molyneux. His guest today (July 6, 2017) was Axel Kaiser, a Chilean writer and journalist with libertarian leanings who joined Molyneux to discuss "the untold story of Augusto Pinochet." Kaiser presented the standard mainstream right-wing case, i.e., Pinochet was bad but Allende was worse. He argued that Allende intended to institute a Marxist totalitarian dictatorship (false), committed horrendous violence (partially true), etc., but I didn't hear anything particularly surprising in what he said. Molyneux, however, pushed his luck. Isn't it true, he asked, that Allende was arming leftist terrorist groups? They were being armed, Kaiser answered, but probably not by Allende. In fact, he continued, many of the most violent leftist rhetoricians of the Allende period shrank away in cowardice rather than have to fight the junta that Pinochet led. Molyneux responded that he found that most leftists preferred to exert statist violence against the helpless and wilted when having to face a real military.

The obvious counterexample of the Viet Cong aside, one must note what Molyneux is doing here. He is painting the left as an inherently violent body of ideologies. Now place this within a larger context of the last few months or so, during which we have seen an overexaggeration of leftist violence against Trump supporters and either denial or weak excuses for right wing violence, not to mention a complete lack of responsibility to answer for Trump's clear exhortations to violence during the campaign. To be clear, violence is in general not something to be admired, and although the mere fact of punching a Nazi says more about the person that evokes such a response and how historically Nazis have had to be dealt with than it does about the person doing the punching, I accept as well that there is an inherent danger in defining the whole right as Nazis.

So we have the left being painted as violent and unhinged. Just think about the most recent episodes of right-wing outrage at Kathy Griffin's ham-handed kabuki theater of beheading the President or at the staging of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in Central Park in New York with the title character decked out in Trumpian finery, and you'll notice a trend. Now couple this with the ongoing attacks on the media. Last week it was a dust-up between the President and Mika Brzenzinksi. This week, it's outrage that CNN found the creator of a video in which the President, in a clip from his WWE days, wrestles a person to the ground, the person having the CNN logo pasted over his face. "CNN has blackmailed this young man!" we are told by Molyneux and others. It is all part of a delegitimation of the left.

It’s worth noting that the interior logic here is sound, although the premises are heavily flawed. If the media against Trump is leftist, and leftists are violent, then of course the media are potentially violent enemies who would commit blackmail. That the U.S. media is overwhelmingly corporate, rather than liberal, is beside the point. So is the overwhelming lack of violence since the 1970s on the left, a large proportion of which supported a rather centrist candidate for President just a few months ago. The right has been significantly more violent in recent decades: the Order, Oklahoma City, and Eric Rudolph come to mind.

The most important question is where Molyneux et al. are going with this rhetoric. It seems to me that they are softening the ground for an authoritarian seizure of power. I've done my level-headed best to resist this position for the last several months, but it's become increasingly clear that this is what is going on. Trump is elbows deep in scandal, and some of it will inevitably catch up with him. It seems unlikely to me that he will finish his term as President, although how his term will end is anyone's guess. My wife suggests he has set the stage for an excuse of illness allowing him to resign. That's possible, to be sure. Impeachment, the other realistic way that he leaves office other than illness or death (he's 71 and obese), hinges on the majority party in the Congress, which is Republican in both cases. Obviously, there are Republicans who have taken (and a few who have even kept) principled stances against Trump, but they are few, and the majority of the party seems content to have Trump in office to rubber stamp whatever they are able to get passed, which seems to be the standard Reaganesque fare of deregulation, tax cuts, and making Americans poorer, dumber, and sicker.

If Trump were smart, he'd realize that he'd be impeached the minute he completed the Republicans' legislative agenda. But he isn’t smart, as should be abundantly clear by now, and I'm a pessimist with regard to this agenda and how successful it will be. And then, if my predictions are correct, Trump will face impeachment. The question for consideration here is what the alt-right will do when he does. I suggest that they are preparing for a violent confrontation and are hoping that they have sufficiently prepared the armed population among them for when push comes to shove. They will not allow Trump to be removed from power against their will.

Is Trump involved in this? Probably not, although maybe his sons are. Certainly figures like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon are, I'd imagine; neither of them seems terribly enamored of democracy. The most important question, it seems to me, is whether the President would go along with a scenario like this. Maybe the most important question of all is whether they will even wait until impeachment becomes a viable option or will allow some Reichstag Fire/9-11 type event, whether staged or genuine, to be zero hour.

So what can you do? I'd recommend reading Timothy Snyder's excellent book On Tyranny and following the directions in there. Remember that what's happening in this country isn't normal by any stretch of the imagination and that defending democratic institutions and the rule of law is more important now than perhaps at any time in the last 150 years. Finally, whenever one of these people on the right wing wielding this rhetoric -- whether Molyneux or Cernovich or one of their band of merry men -- has a megaphone, be there to remind everyone within earshot what they are doing. They are preparing the stage to subvert democracy in this country. If that happens, then what happens next isn't pretty, if history is any lesson.

Don't let them win.

Political Destabilization in WWI Germany

It is axiomatic that World War I had tremendous impacts on Germany, and these effects were political, economic, and social. These effects were, to a very large extent, interrelated, since economic causes often underpin political and social changes. However, in terms of the long-term effects of the changes wrought by Germany's involved in WWI, I believe the political changes were the most important.

In his book, Michael Howard notes that tension arose in the last two years of the war between the High Command, which attained control over the German economy in 1917 to assure full economic mobilization, and the Reichstag, i.e., the popularly elected legislature, which controlled government spending.[1] The most popular political party in Germany was the Social-democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which had finished first in election in Germany since its legalization in 1890, but it had been prevented from holding political power on the basis of Germany's constitution not guaranteeing proportional representation. A combination of factors in early 1917, including the Russian Revolution and the entry of the United States into the war, caused a split in the SPD on the basis of ongoing support for the war.[2] While the newly formed United SPD opposed the war on principle, the remaining SPD sought to turn the situation with the High Command to its advantage by asking Chancellor Bethmann for democratic reforms. Instead, Theobald von Bethmann was pushed out of the Chancellery in favor of Georg Michaelis, who supported the High Command's position and helped them to consolidate their power under the Banner of the Fatherland Party.[3]

On short order in 1918 came the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Russia and the March offensive in the west by General Ludendorff. When it ultimately failed, the High Command appealed to U.S. President Wilson for peace on the basis of the latter's Fourteen Points. Michaelis was replaced by Prince Max of Baden, who immediately sued for peace. In this environment, the SPD was able to push their earlier democratic reforms, including proportional representation, through successfully, with an SPD member, Philipp Scheidemann, even entering the cabinet in the fall as the de facto Foreign Minister.[4] The long-brewing mutiny in the military begin in Kiel on November 4, the Kaiser fled the country on November 8, and the following day, Scheidemann proclaimed Germany to be a republic. The new government was dominated by the SPD and signed the armistice ending the war on November 11, with the new Chancellor Friedrich Ebert telling the press that the revolution was over.[5]

Thus, Ludendorff's offensive in early 1918 can be seen as a last-ditch attempt by the High Command to prevent the inevitable -- a truly democratic government led by the SPD that would make peace without annexations, proving that the whole effort of the war had been for naught. The High Command's actions thereafter provide further proof of the nature of the offensive. Of course, the new SPD-led government would lay the groundwork for future disaster, not only in signing and then continuing to defend the humiliating Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919 -- which would come to be known as the "stab in the back" to which Hitler would often refer -- but also in empowering the right-wing Freikorps militias in using them to put down the Bolshevik-inspired rebellions that occurred in the same year. As historian David Blackbourn has written, however, the SPD did manage to institute several important social reforms, as well as prevent right-wing authoritarian takeovers like that in Hungary, which experienced similar left-wing revolutionary activity.[6] To that extent, although the fight against authoritarianism ultimately failed in Germany, it was successful in the short term owing to the efforts of the SPD.

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     [1] Michael Howard, The First World War: A Very Short Introduction (New York, Oxford UP, 2007), 1584, Amazon Kindle.
     [2] David Blackbourn, The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany, 1780-1918 (New York: Oxford UP, 1998), 486.
     [3] Ibid, 487-89.
     [4] Ibid, 491.
     [5] Ibid, 492.
     [6] Ibid, 493.

Final Exam: 1492 vs. the Present

Explanation: This was my final exam essay for my World History 1500 to Present class. Got an A!

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In 1492, the world was bifurcated. On the one hand, the so-called Old World of Africa and Europe for the most part had interconnected economies through trade routes and maritime commerce, complex societies, and political systems characterized mainly by monarchy. On the other hand, the Americas were isolated, with few societies in contact economically, a large proportion of people still hunting and gathering, and monarchy limited to only a few places. However, with the Columbian Exchange begun in 1492 and the consequent historical developments, the world has converged economically, politically, culturally.

Economically, the looting of gold and silver from the Americas was among the first impacts of contact between the hemispheres. The increase in hard currency drove prices up and also funded further colonial endeavors that further drove a fledgling trans-Atlantic trade. One example is the growth of the sugar trade based on the introduction of coffee to the European market. Because sugar must be farmed in tropical climates by workers accustomed to such conditions, Caribbean plantations drove the market for slavery.

With the Industrial Revolution in Europe, economic growth grew more than ever before, consequently linking hemispheres even more closely. The freeing of human industry from agriculture due to industrialization gave rise to further technological innovation, culminating in the digital economy of today. Compared to 1492, when markets in Belgium and the Amazon basin were totally unrelated, now all markets affect one another due to electronic banking, international investment, and free trade pacts from the late 20th century.

Politically, the Eastern Hemisphere was characterized by monarchies. Agriculture had given rise to food surpluses, in turn giving rise to divisions of labor, urbanization, and concentration of wealth. Large agricultural entrepreneurs who benefited from economies of scale amassed economic and political power, culminating in a hierarchical structure with a monarch on the top. The Western hemisphere, limited by fewer cultivable crops and animals suitable for husbandry, developed monarchies in only a few areas, maintaining a very large proportion of hunter/gatherer societies, characterized politically by fierce egalitarianism.

Contact between hemisphere, based as it was on clear economic and, thus, political inequality, resulted in the extension of monarchy to the Western Hemisphere in the form of empire. However, between the American Revolution and the final throes of decolonization in the post-World War II period, in most cases, political sovereignty was established such that new, independent states were established. Since World War II, in particular, democratization has been the norm, at least in theory. The republican form of government or, at the very least, constitutional monarchy has become commonplace, although certain areas of the world have found the transition more difficult than others.

Culturally, the world was arguably more diverse in 1492 than it is today. Cultures were distinctive in the Eastern Hemisphere on a roughly continent-wide basis, with Europe characterized by a culture steeped in Christianity, the Middle East in Islam, the Far East in Buddhism, etc. Outside of major world powers, languages were largely non-written and quite numerous. This was particularly the case in the Western Hemisphere, where only a handful of languages had any written form. Similarly, religion in the Western Hemisphere had not yet been influenced by Abrahamic faiths, which then as now made up a plurality, if not a clear majority, of professed religious faiths.

Since Columbus's arrival in the Americas, the story has been one of decreased diversity, although of course diversity persists to some extent. Christianity was undoubtedly triumphant in the Western Hemisphere. With the exception of a handful of sizable Hindu communities in the Americas arising from the diaspora of workers from India in the 19th century, Jewish communities strewn about as a consequence of international trade, and far more recent communities of peoples of other religions, including Islam, due to more open immigration policies, the Western Hemisphere has established populations with overwhelmingly Christian -- and in Latin America, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic -- populations. In addition, the Western Hemisphere (and post-Colonial Africa) now uniformly speaks European languages: Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch.

Consequent with the political and economic superiority of the United States since the end of World War II (if not longer), a pervasive culture marked by consumerism has become common in much of the world. Because the U.S. is the world's largest consumer base and because it has the world's largest gross domestic product, the production and trade of goods worldwide has taken on a focus on America and Americans, with clear multiplication of American commercial products (blue jeans, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, etc.). Although there has also clearly been a backlash against this trend, it is not that it will end anytime soon.

In conclusion, a world largely divided by hemisphere in 1492 has, in the five hundred years since then, become a more unified world economically, politically, and culturally. Markets are more independent than ever before, with international trade touching every continent and, as a result, affected virtually everyone's lives. Democracy has by and large replaced other forms of government, particularly absolute monarchy, although it is unclear how well it has succeeded in some places vs. others. Finally, contact between hemispheres had the cultural consequences of the spread of European languages and religions, and in the most recent century, American consumer culture. Whether international capitalism, democracy, and a triumphant Western/American culture will persist into the currently century is currently unknown, but it is clear that the clock cannot be turned back to the way it was before 1492. If change comes, it will be further progression, rather than devolution.

On Slavery

The institution of slavery had broad implications far beyond the obvious result of millions of sub-Saharan Africans being forcibly recollected to the western hemisphere. These implications were political, cultural, and economic in nature and can be seen throughout the eighteenth century. They include the catalyzing of the independence movement in the British colonies of North America, the racial intermarriage and the resultant institutionalization of racism in Europe and the Americas, and the emergence of a triangular trans-Atlantic trade among the Americas, Africa, and Europe. 

Politically, a major event in the eighteenth century was the emergence of the United States of America in the aftermath of a war for independence fought by British colonists in North America against the monarchy. Although the role of slavery in this independence might not be immediately apparent, slavery did play a key role. Although slavery had been legal for some time in the British colonies, it had particularly grown in the southern colonies, which had developed a plantation economy and therefore relied rather heavily on slavery for their economic viability. Fernandez-Armesto writes that the ruling by a judge in the United Kingdom in 1772 outlawing slavery, while welcomed in some of the colonies, was viewed with suspicion and fear by those colonies that relied on slavery for their well-being. He notes further than virtually the whole black population of the colonies sided with the British in the war for independence, likely as a result. While it is likely that the colonists would have sought independence for other reasons, slavery nevertheless contributed in a significant way to the desire for independence.

Culturally, the mere presence of a substantial black population in places where they had not lived before led to changes. In much of the western hemisphere, the intermingling of racial groups gave rise to large populations of people of mixed race. Along with this demographic change came significant linguistic changes. African languages, native American languages, and European languages melded first into pidgins to facilitate trade and then into full-fledged creole languages. However, at the same time that racial intermingling began, laws against such relationships were passed, although Fernandez-Armesto stipulates that these laws often sought to preserve sexual inequality as much as racial inequality. In Dutch Surinam, he reports, women were subjected to corporal punishment for fornication with black men, but not vice versa. Racism ultimately increased as both a cause and an effect of fear of the corruption of white womanhood.

Economically, slavery likely had the greatest impact of all, with this impact taking on a truly intercontinental scale. People of European descent in the western hemisphere operated plantations that required slave labor for their economic viability. Western Africa served as the reservoir for slave labor, and Europeans who operated the slave stations along the coast of western Africa became wealthy through the slave trade. This wealth, in turn, greatly enriched the nations from which those Europeans came -- primarily the United Kingdom but also the Netherlands and France. As a result, these countries grew in their economic influence, not to mention their military and political influence. By the time the eighteenth century ended, a well-established triangular trade with stations in the Caribbean, western Europe, and west Africa, with slaves transported from Africa to the Caribbean, agricultural products transported worldwide from the Caribbean, and money earned from trading in slaves transported to Europe. Although, as noted above, the British began to intimate a move away from slavery in the 1770s, it was largely as the result of expanded colonial endeavors, primarily in India, that the British were able to finally abolish slavery in the 1830s.

In conclusion, it is clear that slavery had widespread political, cultural, and economic consequences. From its important role in inspiring British colonists in North American to seek independence to the rise of a multiracial population in much of the western hemisphere, the backlash against this so-called miscegenation, and the increasingly economically lucrative interrelatedness of Europe, Africa, and the Americas, slavery was a truly transformative factor in the eighteenth century. Although slavery would be abolished in most of these places by 1890, its consequences can still be felt today.