I read a biography of John Winthrop by Edmund Morgan. The biography is called The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop. It’s a masterpiece of historical writing, both clear and concise, both scholarly and popular. It’s one of those rare books that one wishes were longer. For many years, it was a standard text in college history classes. It was first published in 1958, then re-published in later editions. In my view, the various editions are almost identical, so it doesn’t matter which edition you read.
Edmund Morgan has a high reputation among American historians. He attended Harvard, where his mentor was Perry Miller. When Morgan was a student in the 1930s, there was a revival of interest in the Puritans; this revival was started by Perry Miller, and by Miller’s teachers, Samuel Eliot Morison and Kenneth Ballard Murdock.1
The theme of Morgan’s biography is that one should remain engaged with the world, despite the sinful nature of the world. “The central Puritan dilemma,” according to Morgan, is “the problem of doing right in a world that does wrong.” The last paragraph of Morgan’s biography is a good example of his style:
| [Winthrop] was sixty [in 1648], and he kept a tenacious hold on life. Though ill for six weeks with a fever in the summer of 1648, he was abroad and at his business every day — the business of living in Massachusetts. In his journal, as always, he set down the homely details: the scarcity of corn (because so much had been sent in trade to the West Indies and the Azores), the abundance of passenger pigeons, a plague of brown flies (“about the bigness of the top of a man’s little finger”), the burning of a barn at Salem, the discovery of a new path to Connecticut, the drowning of five persons who ventured out on thin ice in the winter of 1648-1649. This was life in Massachusetts — and death. In February he went to bed with a feverish distemper and a cough. On March 26 he reached what in life he had never sought, a separation from his sinful fellow men. |
John Winthrop led the Puritan colony that settled Boston in 1630. The Boston Puritans believed that they could show the world how it was done, how Christian belief and Christian practice could be brought as close to perfection as human nature permitted. The Boston Puritans weren’t separatists, i.e., they didn’t separate from the Anglican Church (the Church of England). The Boston Puritans were Congregationalists, i.e., they believed in each congregation managing itself, rather than being managed by a hierarchy of bishops, etc.
The Boston Puritans believed that there was one right way of church management and Christian belief. They didn’t believe in toleration of wayward views and eccentric dissenters. They drove out dissenters like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson; Williams and Hutchinson went to tolerant Rhode Island. The Boston Puritans thought they could lead England onto the Right Way, but England was pursuing a different way, the way of toleration. “Their well-marked route to the kingdom of God on earth became a historical dead end.”
The Boston Puritans weren’t entirely alone. In 1643, they formed a confederation with the colonies of Plymouth, Hartford, and New Haven; it became known as The New England Confederation. Wayward Rhode Island was excluded. (The colony at Hartford was called The Connecticut Colony since it was on the Connecticut River. The colonies at Boston and Salem formed The Massachusetts Bay Colony.) The colonies in The New England Confederation were hoping for mutual protection from Indians, Dutch, and perhaps French. (It was even possible that the mother country, England, would attack Boston, so King Charles I could re-possess the colony’s charter, and assert his authority. Fearing English attack, the Bostonians decided to “hasten our fortifications.”2)
Puritans generally believed that salvation came, not through good works, but through the free gift of divine grace. But if salvation was an unmerited gift, why should anyone live virtuously? Some preachers said that virtuous living was “preparation” for divine grace. But if you believed that virtue was preparation, didn’t that mean that you believed in good works, a covenant of works?
Anne Hutchinson said that many Bostonians subscribed to a covenant of works, you could see it in their faces, they were proud of their virtue, they weren’t really in a state of grace. Hutchinson argued for a covenant of grace, instead of a covenant of works. She also said that God spoke directly to her, she heard an inner voice, she had an immediate revelation, just as God had spoken to Abraham and told him to slay Isaac. This claim of an inner voice could lead anywhere, so the Boston leaders, including Winthrop, banished Hutchinson.
When Morgan writes about theological disputes, he’s dealing with thorny subjects. It requires considerable skill to present this material in a clear, concise, lively manner. Perry Miller wrote about the Puritans in a way that many readers found challenging, but Morgan managed to write about the Puritans in a way that the average reader could grasp, and even enjoy.
A. Revanche (2008) is an extraordinary movie, but brutal. From the Austrian writer-director Götz Spielmann; in German with subtitles. “Revanche” is a French word meaning “revenge.” How come Americans can’t make movies this good?
B. The new Leonardo documentary, by Ken Burns & Company, is top-notch. Americans may struggle with movie-making, but they sure can make documentaries.
The documentary ends with a quote from Mary Zimmerman: “[Leonardo] has a love of the world. Nothing was dull or boring or quotidian to him, it was all a marvel. That’s the blessed state I feel he was in. Because the world is that abundant, it is that rich. And the more you attend, the richer it is.”3
We often hear about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, but we rarely hear about the motivation behind the internment. In the summer of 1916, about a year before the U.S. entered World War I, an enormous explosion occurred at a pier in New York Harbor. Ammunition destined for the Allies blew up, killing 7 people, and wounding more than 100.
The explosion was caused by German agents, who wanted to disrupt the flow of armaments to their enemies. It was called The Black Tom Explosion since it occurred on a pier that had once been known as Black Tom Island. It was called “Black Tom Island” because a man known as Black Tom once lived there. The explosion was close to the Statue of Liberty, and damaged the statue.
In 1916, the U.S. didn’t have an intelligence agency, so it was difficult to investigate the explosion, and arrest the perpetrators. One person who investigated was John Jay McCloy, who was later the prime mover behind the internment of Japanese-Americans. Franklin Roosevelt also knew about The Black Tom Explosion, and wanted to prevent more such explosions. The reasoning of McCloy and Roosevelt was, If the Germans did it in World War I, couldn’t the Germans do it again in World War II? And if the Germans did it, might not the Japanese do it?
One might compare this reasoning to the reasoning being used now by the Chinese in their Uyghur policy. “If 1 out of 10,000 of these people is a terrorist/saboteur, we can prevent terrorism/sabotage by putting all of these people in a camp.”
I’d like to continue my summary of Jewish history. Here’s what I’ve discussed so far:
Cecil Roth says that, in the late 1700s, European Jews were gradually emerging from the Ghetto. “In enlightened states like Tuscany, no great objection was raised if a few individuals lived outside the Ghetto, the gates of which were no longer closed with such punctuality as hitherto. Even in Venice... the wearing of the Red Hat had fallen into complete desuetude.”4
The gradual assimilation of Jews into the mainstream is exemplified by the German-Jewish writer Moses Mendelssohn. Instead of focusing exclusively on Jewish literature, Mendelssohn studied German literature, too. In 1763, while living in Berlin, Mendelssohn won a prize for an essay on metaphysics; Kant was also competing for the prize. While pursuing his studies, Mendelssohn worked his way up in a textile factory; “his involvement in the Berlin textile industry formed the foundation of his family’s wealth.”5 His grandson was the composer Felix Mendelssohn.
Moses Mendelssohn was a friend of the writer Lessing, author of the play Nathan the Wise. In this play, a Jewish businessman named Nathan forms a bond with the Muslim ruler Saladin. Nathan and Saladin play chess together, as Lessing and Mendelssohn played chess together.
Lessing championed Enlightenment ideals, such as religious toleration and rationalism. Mendelssohn became the champion of the Jewish Enlightenment, known as the Haskalah. The Haskalah favored assimilating, i.e., adopting the language and dress of Gentile society. The Haskalah lasted from about 1780 to 1880, i.e., from the decline of the Ghetto to the rise of Zionism.
The Haskalah favored pure German and pure Hebrew, rather than the mix of German and Hebrew that Jews had been using. Roth credits Mendelssohn’s disciples with initiating “modern Hebrew prose, poetry, essay, and drama.” Mendelssohn put his educational ideals into practice, helping to start a school in Berlin for Jewish students.
Roth seems to favor Zionism over assimilation, so he has reservations about Mendelssohn. Many of the younger Jews who were influenced by Mendelssohn converted to Christianity; his own children converted to Christianity.
One of the Enlightened Despots of the late 1700s, Joseph II of Austria, pursued a policy of toleration, and favored the assimilation of Jews. Joseph II ordered “every Jew to adopt a proper, recognizable surname, instead of the Biblical patronymic which had hitherto sufficed in most cases. Special commissions were appointed to supervise the procedure. If any individual hesitated or demurred, some name was created for him and registered out of hand.” The first Partition of Poland, in 1772, gave part of Poland to Austria, so the policies of Joseph II affected a substantial number of Jews.
But Roth says that many Jews “obstinately” resisted assimilation. For example, if Joseph II decreed that public schools were open to Jews, many Jews preferred their traditional schools. So the reforms of Joseph II had limited impact in his realm. The reforms of Joseph II did, however, strengthen a trend toward toleration, and this trend impacted France and northern Italy. Jews were slowly emerging from the Ghetto.
The American and French Revolutions fostered the emancipation of Jews, i.e., made Jews equal citizens. The French Army spread revolutionary ideas into neighboring countries, and Jewish emancipation was one of these ideas. “In Venice, the Ghetto gates were removed and burned, amid great popular jubilation, on 10 July 1797. In Rome, the deliverance took place in February 1798. Everywhere the Jews formed part of the new municipal governments, and were even granted commissions in the National Guard.” Even in far-off Prussia, Jews were emancipated (Prussia’s Jewish population had risen sharply after the partitions of Poland in the 1790s).
Napoleon’s flair for the dramatic prompted him to revive the ancient Jewish institution of the Sanhedrin, an assembly of 71 Jewish notables. The Sanhedrin met in 1807 and declared, in the spirit of the Napoleonic regime, that “the Jew considered the land of his birth his Fatherland, and recognized the duty of defending it. To this succinct summary of the Imperial ideal those present replied in a truly Napoleonic fashion, rising as one man in assent, with the cry ‘Jusqu’ à la mort! [To the death!]’” The Sanhedrin showed that Napoleon was treating Jews with some respect. When Napoleon’s army marched east, his reputation as a friend of the Jews preceded him, and Polish Jews assisted him.
Napoleon had a proclivity for organizing, a proclivity shown in his legal code, the “Code Napoleon.” In 1808, he decreed that local Jewish communities would be represented by “consistories,” and the consistories were supervised by a “central committee” in Paris. “Thus French Jewry was organized in a hierarchy of mathematical symmetry, which still prevails.”
One charge that’s often made against Jews is that they avoid military service. Roth says that, around 1805, “allegations were made that the Jews were evading conscription, despite the numbers decorated for gallantry in successive campaigns.” Napoleon’s 1808 decree said that “no Jewish conscript was to be allowed to offer a substitute to serve in his place.” The 1808 decree tried to promote assimilation by having Jews adopt French names.
The Napoleonic Wars ended with the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815. Revolutionary ideas were in retreat; reaction set in; Jewish emancipation was at least partly undone. If a city like Bremen expelled recent Jewish settlers, there would be protests from England and other countries. “In 1819... sanguinary excesses against the Jews took place throughout Germany.” Some young Jews, like Heinrich Heine, “despairing of ever being able to make their way in a hostile world as Jews, cynically accepted baptism, while continuing to preserve throughout life a nostalgia for the environment of their younger days.”
The tide of reaction was strong in Italy, especially in those parts of Italy that were ruled by the Catholic Church. In those areas, “the Ghetto system was re-introduced down to the last detail, except for the wearing of a distinctive badge. In many places the gates of the Jewish quarter, destroyed and burned in the first flush of revolutionary enthusiasm in 1797, were again set up. Of all Europe, only Holland maintained the complete legal and constitutional equality recently won.”
But Jews had tasted freedom, and were no longer content with segregation; they had tasted equality, and were no longer content with inferiority. They wanted
| those constitutional and political rights which were the inalienable right of every citizen. Hence the Jews of Central Europe flung themselves heart and soul into the revolutionary movements of the nineteenth century, which finally resulted in the destruction of absolutism and the establishment of constitutional governments... The triumph of constitutionalism [was] ultimately everywhere accompanied by [Jewish] emancipation. |
The July Revolution of 1830 made France a constitutional monarchy, and the new government removed the last vestiges of discrimination against Jews. The new French government even paid Jewish rabbis, as they paid Catholic and Protestant ministers. So if Holland was in the van with respect to Jewish emancipation, France was catching up fast. Austria and the German states also moved toward emancipation, especially after the 1848 revolutions.
After 1848, some liberal revolutions were snuffed out, and there was a conservative reaction, in which Jewish emancipation was rolled back. But by 1860, emancipation was moving forward again, and was soon completed in German-speaking lands.
Switzerland was a bastion of discrimination. As late as 1850, “most cantons refused to admit Jews even temporarily.” So the more liberal nations — England, France, the U.S. — carried on a diplomatic battle against Switzerland (perhaps this battle can be compared to the diplomatic effort to hold South Africa accountable for apartheid). Finally Jews were granted equal rights in Switzerland in the 1860s.
In Italy, there was a brief effort toward emancipation in 1830, but then a reaction set in. Medieval abuses lingered on. “The kidnapping and forced baptism of children... continued to haunt Roman Jewish life.” Jews played a prominent part in the Italian Risorgimento. When Venetians were battling for freedom from Austria, their leader was Manin, who was Jewish, or partly Jewish. When the Risorgimento took Rome in 1870, Italian Jews finally enjoyed equal rights.
In England, there was little discrimination against Jews in the early 1800s. Whatever discrimination existed was aimed, not only at Jews, but at religious minorities generally. Jews could vote, but couldn’t sit in Parliament.
In 1829, English Catholics were finally granted equal rights, and a movement toward Jewish emancipation gathered momentum. By 1846, almost all discrimination against Jews had ended, except that they couldn’t sit in Parliament. Disraeli, who was of Jewish descent, became a leading member of the Tory party (at age 12, Disraeli had been baptized into the Anglican Church, and in 1837, he entered the House of Commons).
In 1858, Baron Lionel de Rothschild became the first professing Jew to sit in the House of Commons. In 1885, Rothschild’s son became Lord Rothschild, and was the first Jew in the House of Lords.
In Russia around 1500, some people were converting to Judaism (as the Khazars had once converted); this movement was repressed. In the 1600s, Peter the Great was “somewhat more favorably inclined,” but the Empresses who succeeded Peter “all issued edicts expelling the Jews from Little Russia — the heart of the country.” In the late 1700s, the Partitions of Poland gave the Russian Czars control “over the largest section of the Jewish people.” The Czars tried to confine the Jews to this area, i.e., to Russia’s new western provinces, the so-called “Pale of Settlement.”
The year 1830 witnessed a wave of liberalism and revolution, a wave that may have started with France’s July Revolution. This wave may have triggered the Polish Revolution of 1830, in which Jews played a “prominent part” (the Polish Revolution aimed to throw off the Russian yoke). Czar Nicholas I crushed the Polish Revolution, and instituted repressive measures against Poles and Polish Jews. Nicholas drafted Polish Jews into the Russian Army. The usual term of army-service was 25 years, starting at age 18, but for Jews, the term was 31 years, and started even younger than 18.
In 1855, a new Czar, Alexander II, instituted various liberal reforms, westernizing reforms. The condition of Jews throughout the Russian Empire was improving.
During the 1800s, the Northern or Ashkenazi Jewish communities were becoming more numerous/prosperous, while the Mediterranean or Sephardi Jewish communities were becoming less numerous/prosperous. In the Ottoman realm (including Egypt), conditions for Jews were endurable, but things were worse elsewhere. To the west — Algeria, Morocco, etc. — “the worst traditions of the Moslem Middle Ages were maintained.” To the south, in Yemen, “persecution became more severe as the nineteenth century advanced.” To the east, in Persia/Iran, “conditions were perhaps worst of all. Here, under the Shia system of theology, which locally obtained, the Jews were considered ritually impure, not even being allowed to go out into the street when it rained lest they should pass on their uncleanliness to a believer.” Forced conversions sometimes created “crypto-Jews,” like the Marranos of Spain.
Roth says that, after the Napoleonic Wars (i.e., after 1815), the Industrial Revolution spread from Britain to the Continent, producing an economic boom, and making Western Europe “the workshop of the world.” With the growth of capitalism came an unprecedented demand for capital. Jewish bankers like the Rothschilds made capital “mobile.”
Meyer Rothschild became wealthy in Frankfurt in the late 1700s. Frankfurt’s central location within Europe helped the Rothschild’s to expand their operations. One of Meyer’s sons, Nathan, went to England about 1800, and became prominent in Manchester in the cotton business, before moving to London and focusing on finance — negotiating government loans, moving gold to Spain to pay Wellington’s troops, etc. Nathan Rothschild “organized an intelligence service so perfect that he was able to supply the Government itself with the first news of Waterloo.”
While Nathan was based in London, Nathan’s four brothers established branches of the family business in Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Naples. “No great enterprise was possible without their support. No important loan could be floated without their co-operation. Their word or warning often swayed the balance between war and peace.” The House of Rothschild was called the Sixth Great Power of Europe (along with Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia). The Rothschilds patronized the arts, and contributed to various charities — for example, Lionel Rothschild helped during the Irish Potato Famine.
Other Jewish families were active in high finance. For example, the Pereire family in France made a fortune by financing French and Russian railroads (their business collapsed in the late 1860s). The Sassoon family was active in Baghdad and Bombay (in an earlier issue, I mentioned that the Sassoons “controlled the opium trade with China”). In the early 1900s, Jewish banking families became less important, “with the decay of the private houses and the growth of joint-stock institutions.”
Jews were active in other businesses besides banking. For example, they were active in the entertainment business, and later, the film industry. They were active in the antique business, in the art business, and in journalism.
Until the 1850s, Nuremberg didn’t allow Jews to stay overnight, so Jews lived nearby, in the town of Fürth. “From [Fürth] issued simultaneously, in 1848, the founder of the Ullstein family, which was to be such a power in the German press and publishing world; and the father of Adolph Ochs, who was to found an organization no less powerful, grouped about the New York Times, in the United States of America.”
Turning to Jewish achievements in the intellectual sphere, Roth says “Heinrich Heine (a Jew at heart, notwithstanding his baptism) was the greatest of German lyric poets, just as Georg Brandes was the most distinguished Danish critic.” Roth says that Jews have a particular knack for science, and many won the Nobel Prize for scientific achievements. Roth says that, if we look at all fields of human endeavor, “the proportion of persons of distinction in the Jewish community” is very high.
Roth notes that Jews were prominent in the early days of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Jews played important roles around 1900 in South Africa’s gold and diamond industries.
Roth says that, from about 1200 AD to 1700 AD, the total number of Jews in the world was 1.5 or 2 million. During the 1800s, the number of Jews rose from 2.5 million to 10.5 million, and by 1930, the number rose to 16 million. This sharp rise can’t be attributed entirely to advances in medicine, industry, and agriculture, because the populations of England and France were rising much more slowly. Roth says that Jews didn’t have a high birth-rate. Was hygiene a factor? Jews always emphasized hygiene; Roth speaks of, “a more hygienic manner of life, resulting in a lower death-rate.” After 1930, the situation changed: “the birth-rate of the assimilated Jewish bourgeoisie of the western countries declined catastrophically.”
Roth speaks of the Jew’s “sturdy individualism,” and he says that the Jew “universally displayed a disinclination to work in a subordinate capacity. As soon as he could possibly do so, the employee set up on his own account.”
Roth says that, in Western Europe, Jews once were scattered throughout countless towns, but during the 1800s, Jews became concentrated in big cities. “With the improvement in communications which characterized the early nineteenth century, the intensity of local life diminished; and the Jews tended therefore to drift towards the larger cities. One after the other, the smaller places were abandoned; and derelict synagogues or burial-grounds became characteristic features of sleepy provincial centers all over western Europe.” In Britain, two-thirds of the Jewish population lived in London. Almost one-third of German Jews lived in Berlin (in 1900, there were about 600,000 Jews in Germany, and about 175,000 lived in Berlin).
During the 1800s, Jews became less Jewish — less interested in learning Hebrew, less regular in synagogue-attendance, less faithful in Sabbath-observance. “There grew up a vast number of persons whose Judaism consisted of little other than an unquenchable charitableness, annual attendance at synagogue, and an almost superstitious craving to be buried in a Jewish ‘House of Life.’” Roth says that, during the 1800s, at least 200,000 Jews were baptized into Christianity.
Inter-marriage became increasingly common. “The proudest nobility often recuperated its fortunes by a match with some Jewish heiress. Hardly a single family of the English or Hungarian nobility — to take only two examples — was free from some such admixture or alliance. In some outlying centers, where the Jewish community was small and the degree of assimilation complete, mixed marriages were sometimes more numerous than the reverse.”
During the 1800s, some Jewish scholars were trained at German universities, then applied modern scholarly techniques to ancient Jewish literature, developing a “Science of Judaism” (Jüdische Wissenschaft). Heinrich Graetz used modern techniques to produce a complete history of the Jews, “which retains its fundamental importance even at the present day.”
In Russia, Jewish scholars translated all sorts of secular literature into Hebrew, a language that had once been reserved for religious texts. Poets and novelists wrote in Hebrew. The term “Haskalah” (Enlightenment) is sometimes applied to this movement.
In addition to a Hebrew revival, there was a Yiddish revival. Sholem Aleichem, writing in Yiddish, told stories about Tevye the Milkman; these stories were the basis for the musical Fiddler on the Roof; Roth calls Sholem Aleichem “the Yiddish Mark Twain.” Mendele Mocher Sforim “depicted small-town life with the genius of a Dickens.” Abraham Goldfaden developed Yiddish theater, and also wrote plays in Hebrew.
In 1818, the first synagogue of Reform Judaism was begun in Hamburg. There were prayers in German, as well as Hebrew; the Sabbath was sometimes switched from Saturday to Sunday; an organ was sometimes played, a choir sometimes sang. Reform went hand in hand with assimilation; advocates of Reform “were at pains to depict themselves as being simply Germans of the Jewish persuasion — not members of a body in whom race and religion and ethnic culture were inextricably intermingled.”
Traditional Jews dreamed of Jews returning to Palestine, perhaps led by a Messiah. But Reform Jews abandoned that ancient dream; their slogan was, “This land is our Palestine, this city our Jerusalem, this House of God our Temple.” The old dream of a Messiah was replaced by “a new conception — that of the ‘Mission of Israel’, which could be accomplished only in dispersion.”
Advocates of Reform focused on the Bible, abandoning the Talmudic tradition and the teachings of the Rabbis. Reform Judaism (sometimes called Liberal Judaism) reached England around 1840, and the U.S. around 1850; in the U.S., radical Reform established a “strong hold.”
More conservative branches of Judaism also modernized, while retaining some traditional elements. The trend toward modernization was accompanied by a change of language: “in France, in Germany, in Italy — everywhere, in fact, excepting in England — the very term ‘Jew,’ with its opprobrious Ghetto connotation, was abandoned to a great extent in favor of ‘Israelite’ or ‘Hebrew’: while, with an unfortunate retrogression in ideas, the title ‘Synagogue’ gave way in many countries to ‘Temple.’”
Both liberal and conservative Jews gradually moved toward the center. Liberals, who had begun by focusing entirely on the Bible, gradually brought back the Talmud. Conservative synagogues, which once favored Hebrew, now had “occasional prayers in the vernacular.”
Roth says that Jews were assimilating and prospering in the world’s most advanced nations. In the more backward Muslim nations, Jews weren’t prospering, but they were maintaining Jewish traditions. Jews in countries like England tried to help Jews in Muslim nations — by education, by intervening diplomatically when there was persecution, by helping immigrants who came to countries like England. Jews who were established in England prided themselves on caring for immigrant Jews, so that no Jew ever depended on the public purse.
Roth says that the “halcyon days” of Jewish emancipation lasted from about 1870 to 1880, and then the dark clouds of anti-Semitism began to gather. This new anti-Semitism “transferred the basis of its prejudices from essentially religious to essentially national grounds.” The term “anti-Semitism” was coined by a German journalist, Wilhelm Marr, in 1879. Anti-Semites said that European Jews were aliens, “inferior physically, intellectually, and morally to their fellow-citizens of the Aryan [race].” Some anti-Semites opposed Christianity as a Jewish religion, others argued that Jesus wasn’t really a Jew.
In 1873, there was an economic downturn in Germany, and Jews were blamed. Journalists like Marr “fanned the flames, inveighing against what they termed the Jewish ‘supremacy’ in German life.” In 1879, Bismarck threw his weight behind the reactionary, anti-Semitic party. Roth writes,
| On 25th April 1881 the Chancellor [i.e., Bismarck] received from the newly organized anti-Semitic League a petition demanding, among other things, the disenfranchisement of the Jews and the prohibition of further immigration into Germany. This document bore the signatures of no fewer than 255,000 persons.... Popular passions found their expression in rioting in many parts of the country and attacks upon persons of Jewish appearance in the streets of the capital itself. |
The anti-Semitic movement spread to Austria-Hungary, where there were ritual-murder trials in the 1880s. In 1882, an anti-Semitic Congress was held in Dresden; it was “the first of a series of international anti-Semitic Congresses, at which fantastic restrictions were demanded.”
Anti-Semitism was also on the rise in France, where “Edouard Drumont, in his venomous La France Juive [Jewish France] of 1886 (one of the most widely-circulated books of the century) now attempted to demonstrate that every trouble which had overtaken that country was due to Jewish machinations.” In 1894, a Jewish officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was falsely convicted of espionage, “to the accompaniment of a wild anti-Jewish campaign in the press, in the streets, in the Chamber.”
In Western Europe, anti-Semitic articles abounded, but violence was rare. The situation was different in Russia. In March 1881, the reforming Czar, Alexander II, was assassinated, and reactionary voices became louder. In April 1881, there was a pogrom in the Kherson region. “Deeds of incredible barbarity were perpetrated under the eyes of impassive officials, and in some cases even with the cooperation of the soldiers of the garrison.” In May, there were pogroms at Kyiv and Odessa, then the violence spread to South Russia and Warsaw. “The whole of Europe stood aghast at this amazing reversion to savagery.”
The pogroms were followed, not by an attempt to punish the perpetrators, but rather by “a determined policy of repression against the victims.” Jews were expelled from villages in the “Pale of Settlement,” and they were confined to “Poland proper” (Poland had been shrunk by the Polish Partitions of the late 1700s). Roth writes,
| The Jews were excluded from the practice of law. The number of students admitted to the secondary schools and Universities was strictly limited.... Meanwhile there was a constant series of expulsions from the rural districts, as well as from the interior of the country.... These reached their climax in 1891, when thousands of persons were deported in mid-winter from Moscow and other cities, and in 1898, when no fewer than seven thousand souls were ruthlessly uprooted from the government of Kyiv alone. |
The situation in Romania was similar. Romania had been part of the Ottoman Empire until about 1850, then it became independent, but was under the “Russian umbrella.” In 1895, an Anti-Semitic League was formed in Romania. Jews were emigrating from Romania, and after a boycott of Jewish businesses, the number of emigrants increased.
In Russia, there were few pogroms from 1882 to 1903. In 1903, there was a pogrom at Chisinau (now the capital of Moldova). “Before long the example was followed elsewhere.” Around 1905, a reactionary group was formed in Russia called “Genuine Russians.” It had “terrorist branches” around Russia; these branches were called The Black Hundreds.
Between 1905 and 1910, “massacres were perpetrated in no less than 284 Russian towns, and the total number of casualties was estimated at fifty thousand.... atrocities on an especially large scale taking place at Bialystok.” Bialystok is now the largest city in northeastern Poland. It seems that most pograms took place in western Russia, in what are now Poland, Ukraine, and Moldova. Why? Probably because western Russia is where most Jews lived.
In 1911, a Jew named Mendel Beilis was arrested in Kyiv “on the preposterous charge of having murdered a Christian child for ritual purposes.” The trial of Beilis dragged on for two years, “to the accompaniment of a wild anti-Semitic campaign throughout the country,” before Beilis was finally acquitted. The Beilis Affair reminds one of the Dreyfus Affair.
Roth concludes from all this that Russian Jews, who made up more than half of the world’s Jewish population, were “reduced to a condition of misery, of rightlessness, of insecurity, of degradation, which recalled the traditions of the Middle Ages at their worst.” This misery led to mass emigration; “the movement of population was greater in magnitude than any which had preceded it in Jewish history.”
The influx of Jews into Germany and Austria-Hungary stoked the flames of anti-Semitism, and “the proposal was recurrently made to forbid immigration from the east.... The vast mass pushed on westwards. They could be found in every capital from Stockholm to Lisbon. But, by some strange mass-suggestion, the overwhelming majority came to the Anglo-Saxon countries — the only parts of the world which were as yet free from dangerous manifestations of anti-Semitic feeling, and where, moreover, dazzling economic opportunity seemed open.” Most American Jews came to the U.S. during this period, 1880-1910.
London’s Jewish population tripled; many Jews settled in London’s East End. “Most of the new arrivals were compelled by force of circumstances to enter the tailoring and allied industries.” Yiddish newspapers and theaters sprang up. As in Germany, there was a backlash against immigration; “The agitation culminated in the Aliens Immigration Act of 1905, which stemmed, though it did not stop, the incoming tide.”
One English Jew, Israel Zangwill, wrote popular plays and novels, many of which dealt with Jews. In 1908, Teddy Roosevelt lauded Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot, and the English novelist George Gissing lauded Zangwill’s novel Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People. Zangwill worked with Herzl, the father of Zionism, on the project of a Jewish homeland. Before 1905, various places were considered — Argentina, Uganda, etc. — for the establishment of a Jewish colony/homeland.6
Turning to the U.S., Roth says that the first Jews in New York City arrived in 1654 from Brazil. They were probably from Portugal originally, members of the Marrano community. When the Dutch briefly conquered Brazil, these Marranos had become open Jews (instead of crypto-Jews). When Portugal re-conquered Brazil, these Jews became refugees, perhaps from fear of the Inquisition. They found a home in New York City.
By 1750, there were Jewish communities scattered throughout the American colonies; many were traders, like Aaron Lopez of Newport, Rhode Island. By the time of the American Revolution, there were about 2,000 Jews in the U.S. This number grew after the Napoleonic Wars, and continued growing after the attempted revolutions of 1830 and 1848.7 The Gold Rush of 1849 led to the extension of Jewish settlement to the Pacific.
Though some early Jewish immigrants were Sephardic (i.e., originating in Spain or Portugal), most American Jews by 1850 were German (Ashkenazi). Many of these German Jews were Reform Jews, who had little interest in maintaining Jewish traditions; “Reform Judaism of an extreme type became deeply rooted in America.”
Between 1880 and 1905, about 1 million Jews came to the U.S., mostly from Eastern Europe, fleeing pogroms, or attracted by the dream of a better life. “Every fresh wave of violence sent a new consignment of refugees beyond the frontiers, and gave the process fresh impetus. The mass suggestion spread more and more widely. In the end, a majority of the Jewish people under the rule of the Czar were living either on remittances from America or else in the daily hope of being enabled to go thither themselves.” By 1930, the number of Jews in the U.S. was about 4 million, of whom about 1.75 million lived in New York City. Toronto and Montreal also had large Jewish communities.
In 1914, the outbreak of World War I brought emigration from Eastern Europe to a halt. The Jewish communities of Eastern Europe were battered by invading armies, disease, and destitution. Fighting on the Eastern Front ended in 1917, but then the Russian Civil War started, pitting conservative “Whites” against Marxist “Reds.” The White forces were commanded by General Denikin, “whose name is associated with some of the worst atrocities in Jewish history since the Middle Ages.” Red armies also massacred Jews, accusing them of being counter-revolutionaries.
A Ukrainian army under Petlura attempted to create an independent Ukraine. Petlura’s forces are alleged to have massacred thousands of Jews. Ukraine was “invaded in turn by Bolsheviks and reactionaries, ill-armed, ill-disciplined, and generally unpaid. ‘Whites,’ ‘Reds,’ and Petlurists might all occupy a town within the space of a few days, each army bringing in its wake a new wave of massacre and destruction.”
World War I resulted in the decline of empires, and an increase of nationalistic feelings. The new Turkish nation was no longer hospitable to Jews, and tried “to oust them from the commanding position which they had previously held (together with Greeks and Armenians) in commercial and professional life.” The post-war Greek government pursued similar policies.
With the decline of the Jewish communities of the Levant and Eastern Europe, the relative importance of American Jews grew. They were “now by far the most wealthy, as well as the most numerous, of all sections of the Jewish people throughout the world.” Around 1900, the American Jewish community included
But despite this success, Roth is concerned about American Jews, concerned that they’ve abandoned Jewish traditions, Jewish scholarship, etc.
After World War I, Jewish immigration into the U.S. was restricted. Some EastEuropean Jews, and some Turkish Jews, went to France (especially Paris). Some Jews went to other WesternEuropean countries, a few settled in China and Japan. Substantial numbers of Jews went to Central and South America, especially Argentina; by 1945, there were some 350,000 Jews in Argentina.
In Argentina, EasternEuropean Jews had to give up Yiddish, and learn Spanish, but Jews from the Levant fit right in, since they spoke Spanish already (they had kept their Spanish since being expelled from Spain in 1492). One wonders what has happened in recent decades to this Argentine Jewish community.
Roth says that, around 1850, there were “tens of thousands” of Jews in Palestine, most of whom lived on donations sent by European Jews. In Jerusalem, there was a “pauper Jewish population.” Prominent Jews (like the Englishman Moses Montefiore, and the American Judah Touro) encouraged these paupers to take up agriculture; an agricultural school was opened in Palestine.
Meanwhile, there was a rising tide of nationalist/Zionist sentiment in the Jewish community, perhaps inspired by nationalist movements in Italy and the Balkans, perhaps inspired by growing anti-Semitism in Western Europe. In 1862, a German-Jewish writer named Moses Hess published Rome and Jerusalem, in which he “argued for the Jews to return to Palestine, and proposed a socialist country in which the Jews would become agrarianized.... When Theodor Herzl first read Rome and Jerusalem he wrote that ‘since Spinoza, Jewry had no bigger thinker than this forgotten Moses Hess.’ [Herzl] said he might not have written Der Judenstaat [The Jewish State, published in 1896] if he had known Rome and Jerusalem beforehand.”
In 1876, George Eliot published the novel Daniel Deronda, which contains Zionist ideas (Eliot wasn’t Jewish herself). The Russian pogroms of 1881 prompted some Russian Jews to abandon the hope of assimilation and emancipation. In 1882, Leo Pinsker of Odessa wrote a pamphlet called Auto-Emancipation, in which he advocated a Jewish homeland. Some Russian Jews went to Palestine, and started “a few agricultural colonies.”
In 1894, a Jewish journalist from Vienna, Theodor Herzl, was in Paris, covering the Dreyfus Affair for a Viennese newspaper. Herzl had been raised in an assimilated environment, and had advocated mass baptism of Jewish children as “the obvious solution to the Jewish question.” But what he saw in Paris convinced him that a change of religion wouldn’t solve “the Jewish question,” because anti-Semitism went deeper than religion, anti-Semitism was racial hatred. Jews could change their religion, but not their race.
So Herzl became an advocate of a Jewish state. “Carried away by his enthusiasm, Herzl wrote at high pressure his famous Judenstaat, in which he... outlined a scheme in which mystical fervor and severe attention to practical detail were curiously intermingled.”
Herzl’s work struck a responsive chord, at least with some Jews. “His magnetic personality gained him many adherents all over the world — particularly in eastern Europe, where the traditional devotion to Palestine was still overwhelmingly strong. He became the idol of the Jewish masses.” But Herzl was less popular with assimilated Jews in Western Europe. Many assimilated Jews were satisfied with their lives, and worried that a Jewish homeland would threaten their position. Reform Jews had abandoned the ancient Palestine dream, and Orthodox Jews trusted God to build a Jewish homeland when the time was ripe. So Herzl’s Zionism had a mixed reception from the Jewish community; Roth speaks of “the general lukewarmness.”
Herzl organized Zionist Congresses, and met with several European heads of state. The British government offered Jews land in the Sinai Peninsula, and land in Kenya. But Herzl and his cohorts decided that only Palestine was feasible. “Herzl died, worn out by his labors, at the early age of forty-four (1904).” Herzl had succeeded in raising the profile of Zionism, and making it part of public discussion in many countries.
Institutions like the Jewish Colonial Trust and the Jewish National Fund assisted with land-purchases in Palestine, and “the settlement of the Jews on the soil of Palestine quietly progressed. The whole country became dotted with agricultural colonies.... The language spoken by the colonists was Hebrew.”
A Hebrew literary revival had been underway in Russia for several decades, and had produced a poet named Hayyim Nahman Bialik, whom Roth calls “the greatest Hebrew poet since Judah Halevi.” Bialik is sometimes called “Israel’s national poet.” The Hebrew revival also produced an essayist named Asher Ginsberg, better known as Ahad Ha'am.
Herzl’s death in 1904 was a blow to the Zionist movement. After 1904, “Zionism lost its vitality,” and progress toward a Jewish state was slow.
When World War I broke out, Britain and France hoped that American opinion would turn against the Germans, and the U.S. would enter the war on the Allied side. Britain and France knew that American opinion, especially Jewish-American opinion, was troubled by the fact that one of the Allies was Russia, which was notorious for its mistreatment of Jews. Jews with German roots usually supported Germany in World War I, so the Zionist movement was divided between pro-British and pro-German elements. Some Jews feared that, if they backed the Allies, the Turks would massacre Jews, as they had massacred Armenians; Jews wanted to maintain good relations with the German general in charge of Palestine.
Meanwhile, Palestine was still in the hands of the Ottoman Turks, as it had been for 400 years. If the Turks had been on the Allied side, the British couldn’t have offered Turkish land (Palestine) for a Jewish homeland. But since the Turks were on the German side, the British could offer Palestine as a Jewish homeland, and thereby motivate Jews everywhere to work harder to defeat the Germans and the Turks.
Meanwhile, the British were also courting the Arabs, and promising the Arabs an independent state, free from Turkish control. A British official, Henry McMahon, corresponded with an Arab leader in Saudi Arabia. McMahon offered an independent Arab state in return for an Arab attack on the Ottomans. The exact boundaries of the future Arab state were somewhat vague, and this led to disputes later.
The Germans and Turks wanted to bind the Arabs and Turks in a Muslim union, a holy war against Jews and infidels. The British wanted to divide this union, and set Arabs against Ottomans. Did British promises to Arabs conflict with British promises to Jews? Did McMahon’s letters constitute an official British treaty with the Arabs?8
The British issued the Balfour Declaration in November 1917. The Balfour Declaration tried to forestall two problems with a Jewish homeland: the problem of taking land from the Arabs, and the problem of angry Arab governments expelling their Jewish minorities. So the Balfour Declaration said, “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
The Germans tried to match the Balfour Declaration, and offer the Jews a homeland, but it was difficult for them to give away the territory of an ally (Turkey), so their declaration was “anemic.” It was much easier for the British to give away the territory of an enemy.
After the Balfour Declaration, Zionists everywhere backed the Allies. “The [Jewish] colonists in Palestine, at the risk of their lives, were doing everything in their power to pave the way for the British advance, notwithstanding the miniature reign of terror which now began. A series of Jewish battalions (one of them composed entirely of American volunteers) was raised and trained in England, and dispatched to the Palestinian front.” With British forces invading Palestine from Egypt, the Turks were driven out of Palestine.
In 1920, the League of Nations granted Britain a “mandate” to govern Palestine, and implement the Balfour Declaration. Meanwhile, Zionists didn’t let the British government forget its promise of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The first British High Commissioner for Palestine was a Jew, Herbert Samuel, who supported Zionist goals.
Samuel tried to demonstrate his impartiality by protecting Arab rights. “Severe restrictions were placed upon Jewish immigration.” In 1929, “another series of anti-Jewish riots took place, with devastating effect, throughout the country.” Despite immigration-restrictions, Jews continued to enter Palestine; their population rose from about 85,000 in 1922 to 175,000 in 1931, to 450,000 in 1939.
Roth waxes enthusiastic about the revival of Hebrew, and the establishment of universities and publishers in Palestine. Knowing Hebrew helped Jews connect with their past, but it didn’t help them connect with the world. A more international language, like English, would have helped Jewish writers and businessmen connect with foreigners, while not impeding their ability to connect with each other. Roth says that Hebrew has become the “lingua franca of the Diaspora,” replacing Yiddish and Ladino/Spanish, but I never heard “Diaspora Jews” speaking Hebrew, I suspect that English is the lingua franca of the Diaspora.
The CEO of UnitedHealth, Brian Thompson, was recently murdered in Manhattan. Many people suspect that the killer was angry about the denial of a claim, i.e., many people suspect that UnitedHealth refused to pay for a certain procedure, leading to a patient’s death, or leading to a patient being saddled with large debts. Apparently the killer wrote “Deny” and “Delay” on the casings of his bullets, knowing that these casings would be recovered by police; he was probably angry that UnitedHealth had Denied and Delayed insurance-claims.
There are many “street cameras” in Manhattan, and the killer was recorded on several cameras. Shortly before the murder, the killer was talking on a cell phone. After the killing, he ran down an alley, and police later found a cell phone in that alley. Assuming the police found the killer’s phone, did the killer discard his personal phone, filled with personal information? Or was it a “burner phone” (criminals often use burner phones, which are impersonal, anonymous)? Did the killer intentionally discard his phone, or accidentally drop it?
And why was the killer talking on the phone at such an early hour? Was he coordinating his actions with an accomplice? Saying a last goodbye to a loved one? Telling the media why he was killing someone? Or was he just pretending to talk on the phone?
The police believe that the suspect left the city on a bus. If he stays in the U.S., I don’t think he can avoid capture. Will he be taken alive, or will he take his own life before he’s arrested? If he’s arrested and tried, will he use the trial to complain about UnitedHealth’s practices?
The police believe that the killer is “proficient” at using guns. Perhaps he’s a former soldier or policeman, like the Golden State Killer. Police thought he had a silencer affixed to his gun; this is very rare. Now, however, police think he may have used a low-noise gun designed for vets. The suspect was savvy about cameras, keeping his face covered as much as possible.
The police probably have the killer’s DNA, so they may look for a match on a site like ancestry.com; this is how the Golden State Killer was caught. Or the police could try to get a face-scan, and look for a match in databases of face-scans. Or get a finger-print, and try to match that.
If the killer’s DNA doesn’t reveal his identity, perhaps his DNA will reveal what ethnic group he belongs to. If he’s, say, Armenian or Turkish, the police could keep a close watch on flights to Armenia or Turkey.
It’s remarkable that the suspect’s name is still unknown. Since his picture was widely distributed, you would think someone would have recognized him, and called the police; surely his relatives must have recognized him. Perhaps he has few relatives in the U.S.; perhaps he was born abroad, or his parents were born abroad. Perhaps the police know his name, but don’t want to reveal it.
UnitedHealth is a huge health-insurance, health-care company; it’s the 8th-largest company in the world, with $22 billion in profit in 2023. It’s known for denying claims at a higher rate than most insurance companies; according to the New York Times, “UnitedHealthcare has come under fierce criticism from patients, lawmakers and others for its denials of claims.”9
A claim-denial doesn’t just impact individual patients, it often impacts hospitals, who provide treatment but don’t get paid for it. If denying claims is profitable, will more insurance companies make a practice of denying claims? If the CEO is hired to increase profits, is he essentially hired to find ways to deny claims?
Sometimes UnitedHealth makes a claim on the government — on a government program called Medicare Advantage. UnitedHealth has been accused of bilking the MedicareAdvantage program of billions of dollars. So UnitedHealth seems to profit by skirting the rules, by playing hardball with individual patients and with the government.
But if the public is plundered by companies like UnitedHealth, the public also profits from such companies; a substantial percentage of Americans have stock-market investments. It’s possible that the gunman, or one of his relatives, owned stock in UnitedHealth, either directly or through a mutual fund. And if they did own UnitedHealth stock, then they’re profiting by hardball business tactics, they’re profiting by denying claims, just as Brian Thompson was.
We can’t expect UnitedHealth to pay every claim. Doubtless many claims are bogus, and deserve to be denied. Some treatments are experimental, and wildly expensive, so denying such treatments might be reasonable.
If a claim is legitimate, and is denied by UnitedHealth, can the patient appeal, can he make his case? Probably not. Hiring a lawyer is difficult for the average American. Speaking to an elected representative (a politician) may not fix the problem. A large company like UnitedHealth probably donates to many politicians, and gets their support by donating.
It’s difficult for the individual to fight The System, to get justice. Most Americans can only hope that they don’t become one of the unfortunate victims of injustice. Those who feel that they’re the victims of injustice may decide that their best option is violence, i.e., vigilante justice. Some people are now applauding the killer of Brian Thompson.
Was Thompson responsible for The System? Or was he an innocent cog in a vast machine? During a 20-year career at UnitedHealth, Thompson worked his way up from a low rank. He was promoted for generating profits for shareholders. He was paid to generate profits, not to satisfy every legitimate claim. If he didn’t generate profits, someone else would have been put in his place. And surely his wife and children were innocent, and didn’t deserve to have Thompson taken from them.
Thompson was noted for “small-town geniality.” Should we view this geniality as a friendly front for a brutal business? Or should we view Thompson as a genuinely nice person, whom the killer could have spoken to, and received sympathy from? Do the huge institutions of the modern world prompt people to murder complete strangers, rather than talking to them?
Does violence sometimes play a constructive role? Will this sensational crime draw attention to the subject of insurance claims? How should legitimate claims be distinguished from illegitimate ones? Is this a job for software or for people? How would you feel if you had a legitimate claim, and it was denied by a company that made $22 billion last year?
In some cases, people buy health insurance with their own hard-earned money, and when they submit a claim, it’s denied. Naturally they would feel that they paid for health insurance, but didn’t receive it; they would feel that the insurer cheated them, betrayed them, betrayed them in their hour of need.
Insurance companies like UnitedHealth have an incentive to deny claims. Is there a way to incentivize these companies to evaluate claims fairly, and pay legitimate claims? Could there be a public “scorecard” showing which insurance companies routinely deny claims? Could the media do a better job of publicizing cases of insurance-malpractice — cases in which legitimate claims are denied?
© L. James Hammond 2024
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| Footnotes | |
| 1. | In an essay on Miller, Morgan says, “Miller had come to Cambridge to sit at the feet of Murdock and Morison.” Morgan says that academics
“often pride themselves on a certain refinement of manners, bearing, and conversation.... Perry Miller’s manners were rough; his bearing was not quite the one expected of a professor; and his casual conversation was calculated to shock. He sometimes affected an uncouthness that made a perceptive listener at one of his lectures ask why he kept insisting that he was really a stevedore. The answer, perhaps, was that he feared dignity might not merely substitute for learning but overcome it. Indeed, his posture carried the suggestion that such a conquest had occurred in some that he saw around him.” Did Miller feel that he wasn’t part of the WASP establishment? Is that why he was especially close with Harry Levin, a Jewish professor?
Morgan’s biography of Winthrop is part of the “Library of American Biography.” For more about this series, click here or here. back |
| 2. | See Morgan, Ch. 13, p. 196 back |
| 3. | I’ve modified Zimmerman’s words slightly. Zimmerman staged a play called The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. back |
| 4. | A Short History of the Jewish People, Ch. 27, #1, p. 337 back |
| 5. | Wikipedia back |
| 6. | Some Jews favored assimilation, opposed the idea of a Jewish state, and opposed the Balfour Declaration. back |
| 7. | Some of these revolutions failed, and some were followed by reactionary policies, so people who wanted rights and freedoms were drawn to the U.S. back |
| 8. | When the Arabs attacked the Turks, T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) fought with the Arabs. Elie Kedourie wrote a book about McMahon’s correspondence with the Arabs; the book was called In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth: The McMahon-Husayn Correspondence and Its Interpretations 1914-1939. back |
| 9. | Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, but I’ve chosen to use the term “UnitedHealth.” UnitedHealth is the parent company of UnitedHealthcare. To put it another way, UnitedHealthcare is the health-insurance division of UnitedHealth. back |