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Ideologies of Political Life:Diaspora, Antisemitism, and
the HolocaustRELIG 210: Lecture 17
March 10, 2008
Lifecycle 101: From Cradle to the Grave
• Brit Milah/Baby Naming
• Bar/Bat Mitzvah
• Marriage
• Conversion
• Death and Mourning
Lecture Goals
• Conclude Jewish Lifecycle Review
• Price and Promise of Emancipation
• Antisemitism and the Holocaust
Why is Conversion so Important Today?
• http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=279
Religious Affiliation on the Move
• http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
Conversion
• Judaism is not a proselytizing faith• Non-Jews discouraged from converting
– Sense of obligation, burden– Only convert “for the sake of heaven”
• Religious tradition does allow for entry– Identify with Jewish people– Religious practices– Relationship with God
• Converts treated favorably-Ruth– “Your people are my people…”
Conversion and Covenant
• Period of intense study• Circumcision
– Acceptance of Jewish fate and destiny– National covenant-all Jews circumcised in
preparation for leaving Sinai
• Immersion– Before Sinai-Jews told to wash– Newborn Jew-New Hebrew Name
Death and Mourning Rituals
• Death seen as tragic and inevitable– Focus on mortality and sacredness of life on earth– Teachings on life after death vary
• Tradition emphasize comforting mourners• Body is treated with great dignity
– Burial society cares for body– Body is accompanied from death to burial
Burial and Funeral
• Simple Burial– No Cremation– Plain shrouds, wooden coffin– No physical wealth to grave
• Funeral ritual– Special mourner’s prayer
Mourning Rituals
• Shiva period-7 days– Family remains at home– Community visit, comfort, and celebrate life of deceased
• Shloshim- 30 days– Mourners return to normal routine– Refrain from pleasurable activities
• Immediate relatives- Year mourning period
Judaism and the Political Order
• Judaism develops in the Diaspora• Various degrees of autonomy and
persecution– Late Antiquity - Self-government under Patriarch
and Exilarch– Christendom and Islam– Jews and the Modern State
• Dina d’malkuta dina-Law of Empire is is legitimate law (if compatible with halakah)
The Jews and the Modern State
• Emancipation– Process by which Jews gain citizenship– Not uniform across Europe
• Expectations– 1789 Count of Clermont-Tonnerre Speech– How does he justify allowing Jews
citizenship
Jewish Response to Emancipation
• 1806 Napoleon convenes Assembly of Jewish Notables
• How does this group respond?
Spread of Emancipation1789-1933
• Fits and starts
• Debate about citizenship– Jews can change– Integration-->Assimilation
• The Jewish Question Then and Now
The New Antisemitism
• Traditional Christian anti-Judaism– Theology– Conversion is a possibility
• 1879-New Term: “Antisemitism”– Wilhelm Marr and Karl Duehring– Racial terminology– Biological and unchangeable
• 1894 Alfred Dreyfus Affair
Why Antisemitism?
Rise of Antisemitism?• Economic
– Lower class resentment– Dislocation of capitalism, industrialization– Blame Jews for competition of capitalism
• Political – Resent democracy, equality, anticlericalism– Antisemitism as tool for illiberal forces– Yearn for a pre-modern utopia
• Psychopolitical Terms– Glorification of German people– Need common enemy
Antisemitic Themes
1. Jews conspiring to destroy Western Civilization
• Control politics, culture, press, and economics• Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Russia, 1903)
2. Racial distinction between good and evil groups
• Aryan vs. Semite• Jews are strangers, parasites
The Protocols Today
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAncuwwUbj0
The Protocols Today
The Holocaust
• Systematic, state-sponsored persecution and annihilation of approximately 6 million Jews by Nazis and collaborators between 1933 and 1945
• Jews are less than 1% of German population (500,000)
• Final Solution to Jewish Question
Questions Raised by Holocaust
• Why did the Nazis want to exterminate the Jews?– Hitler’s plan from the beginning?– Response to failure of other efforts to solve Jewish
problem
• How did Hitler and the Nazis succeed in imposing view on millions of Germans?– Germans wanted change after WWI– Nazis implemented totalitarian dictatorship– Bureaucratic proccess
More Questions…
• How did Nazis manage to kill Jews outside of Germany?– Had support of local governments– Exterminate nearly all Jews living in
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Western Russia– Most Jews in Hungary, Holland and
Greece
• How did America remain silent?
Impact of the Holocaust on Judaism
• Demographic– Wipes out center of Jewish life– Émigrés have huge impact on American Jewish
community
• Theological– Is covenant broken?– Unprecedented destruction– Where is God?– 614th commandment
Impact, continued
• Centrality of Holocaust narrative– Silence in 1950s and 1960s– Gains centrality in recent decades– Connection with Israel– Today: Is there too much victimization?
• Political Question– Will Jews always be persecuted?– Recent rise in antisemitsim
Is America an Exception?• No fight for emancipation in US
– Separation of Church and State– Jews get vote in all states by 1840
• Anti-Jewish antagonism muted – Founded as place for religious dissidents– Strong strain of civil nationalism– Also racial and religious notions of American identity
• American society profoundly religious– Strong belief in denominations– Ideal citizen is connected to religious community
