9781584657170
9781611680300
Distributed for Brandeis University Press
Jews and Race
Writings on Identity and Difference, 1880–1940
Many people think of Jews as victims of a particular sort of racism, not as active participants in the development of racial thinking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yet many Jews did take up racial discourse and used it to analyze Judaism, Jewish history, and the contemporary condition of world Jewry. Race discourse generated by Jews was in part apologetic, a response to racial antisemitism; however, it also served other political and ideological needs. Focusing primarily on works written at the height of the racial hygiene and eugenics movements in Europe and North America, this diverse anthology shows how Jewish scholars and popular writers in Europe, North America, and Palestine developed racial interpretations of Judaism and Jewish history, thereby raising fascinating and thorny issues about the nature and history of racial discourse in Europe and America. Designed for class adoption, the volume contains annotations and an introduction by the editor.
Table of Contents
Foreword • Acknowledgments • Jews and Race: An Introductory Essay – Mitchell B. Hart • General Overviews • “Racial Characteristics of Modern Jews” – Joseph Jacobs • “Reflections on the Jews” – Isidore Loeb • Preface from Jews, Race, and Environment – Maurice Fishberg • “Jewish Race” – Fritz Kahn • “On the Origins and Race of the Jews” – Arthur Ruppin • Anthropology • “Introduction to the Anthropological Study of the Jews” – Édward Goldstein • Entry on Anthropology from The Jewish Encyclopedia – Joseph Jacobs • “The Jews as a Race” – J. M. Judt • “The Brain Weight of Jews” – Richard Weinberg • “The Jewish Racial Problem” – Samuel Weissenberg • “Anthropological Research on the Russian-Polish Jews, and the Value of This Research for the Anthropology of the Jews in General” – Arkadius Elkind • “Are the Jews a Race?” – Sigmund Feist • Medicine and Biology • “The Comparative Pathology of the Jews” – Maurice Fishberg • “Contributions to the Jewish Racial Question” – Felix Theilhaber • “Heredity and the Jew” – Redcliffe N. Salaman • “The ‘Nervousness’ of the Jew” – Abraham Myerson • “The Problem of Tuberculosis among the Jews: A Racial and Socio-Pathological Study” – Noel Haltrecht • Society and Economy • “Is the Criminality of the Jews Racial Criminality?” – Rudolf Wassermann • “Jews, Race, and Environment” – Maurice Fishberg • “Successes of the Jews in Capitalistic Enterprise” – Arthur Ruppin • “Racial Mixing”: Intermarriage and Conversion • “The Jewish Racial Question” – Elias Auerbach • “The Mixed Marriage” – Arthur Ruppin • “Fertility in Mixed Marriages” • “The Significance of the Mixed Marriage” – Ignaz Zollschan • “Intermarriage between Jews and Christians” – Maurice Fishberg • Politics, Polemics, and Apologetics • “The So-Called Jewish Race” – Salomon Reinach • “The Chosenness of the Jews in the Light of Biology” – Alfred Nossig • “To Which Race Did Jesus Belong?” – Leo Sofer • Foreword and Introduction from The Racial Problem, with Particular Attention Paid to the Theoretical Foundations of the Jewish Racial Question – Ignaz Zollschan •“There Is No Jewish Race!” The Testimony of the American Jewish Committee and Union of American Hebrew Congregations before the United States Immigration Committee • “Assimilation versus Zionism” – Maurice Fishberg • “The Racial Identity of the Jews”– unsigned editorial from Die Welt • “On the Jewish Racial Question” – unsigned editorial from Die Welt • “Concerning Racial Theory” – Robert Weltsch • “The Jewish Racial Problem” – Moritz Goldstein • “Jews and Jewishness” – Chaim Zhitlowsky • Suggestions for Further Reading • Index