Jewish Representation in the Independent Ukrainian Governments of 1917-1920

Slavic Review ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 542-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Abramson

The experience of Ukrainian Jewry from 1917 to 1920 is a paradox in modern Jewish history. At the same moment that the leaders of the Ukrainian revolutionary movement extended unprecedented civil rights to Ukrainian Jews, pogromists operating in the name of that same movement brutally terrorized hundreds of Jewish communities with violence and robbery. This strange incongruity has not been satisfactorily addressed; studies of the period have either concentrated on the pogroms or focused on Jewish socialists in Ukrainian politics. Linguistic barriers and subsequent developments, notably the 1926 assassination of Symon Petliura, have further polarized an already dichotomous history. This article attempts to synthesize these two trends.

Author(s):  
David Sorkin

For all their unquestionable importance, the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel now loom so large in modern Jewish history that we have mostly lost sight of the fact that they are only part of—and indeed reactions to—the central event of that history: emancipation. This book seeks to reorient Jewish history by offering the first comprehensive account in any language of the process by which Jews became citizens with civil and political rights in the modern world. Ranging from the mid-sixteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first, the book tells the ongoing story of how Jews have gained, kept, lost, and recovered rights in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the United States, and Israel. Emancipation, the book shows, was not a one-time or linear event that began with the Enlightenment or French Revolution and culminated with Jews' acquisition of rights in Central Europe in 1867–71 or Russia in 1917. Rather, emancipation was and is a complex, multidirectional, and ambiguous process characterized by deflections and reversals, defeats and successes, triumphs and tragedies. For example, American Jews mobilized twice for emancipation: in the nineteenth century for political rights, and in the twentieth for lost civil rights. Similarly, Israel itself has struggled from the start to institute equality among its heterogeneous citizens. By telling the story of this foundational but neglected event, the book reveals the lost contours of Jewish history over the past half millennium.


Author(s):  
Ewa Morawska

This chapter examines David Berger's The Legacy of Jewish Migration: 1881 and Its Impact (1983). The wave of pogroms in Russia in 1881–2 forcefully brought to the surface a complex of demographic, ideological, and cultural developments that had been working their way through the Jewish communities of the Pale since the mid-19th century and which were to affect profoundly modern Jewish history. Commemorating the centennial of those catalytic years and their aftermath, especially the mass emigration and resettlement of Russian Jews during the three decades that followed, the book under review re-examines the impact of these events on different areas of life of 20th-century Jewry. The volume consists of fourteen short essays presented originally as papers at the 9th Annual Conference on Society in Change held at Brooklyn College in March of 1981. The Legacy of Jewish Migration reads well, and the variety of topics treated in the book successfully holds the reader's attention; also, bibliographies appended to each selection are useful and up to date.


Author(s):  
Todd M. Endelman

This chapter focuses on Jews who left Judaism in the decades before the First World War and who were not attracted by the spiritual truths or ethical values of Christianity. It discusses disaffiliation as a hallmark of modern Jewish history in the West in which the flow out of Judaism was not equally strong in all countries and among all strata of Jewish society. It also analyses the characteristic patterns of drift and defection that emerged in every country or region bearing the impress of larger social and political conditions. The chapter talks about the temptation to abandon Judaism, which increased from 1870 to 1914, when rising antisemitism called into question Jewish integration into state and society with unprecedented intensity. It refers to England and Germany as states with dissimilar political cultures and social systems, which illuminates the history of the Jewish communities there.


1959 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 204
Author(s):  
B. Weinryb ◽  
Howard M. Sachar

Author(s):  
David B. Ruderman ◽  
Francesca Bregoli

The term “early modernity” as the name of a period roughly extending from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century has been only recently employed by historians of Jewish culture and society. Despite a plethora of new studies in the last several decades, few attempts have been made to define the period as a whole as a distinct epoch in Jewish history, distinguishable from both the medieval and the modern periods. Some historians have remained indifferent to demarcating the period, have simply designated it as an extension of the Middle Ages, or have labeled it vaguely as a mere transitional stage between medievalism and modernity without properly describing its distinguishing characteristics. A few historians have used the term “Renaissance” to apply to the cultural ambiance of Jews living in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries alone without delineating the larger period and the more comprehensive geographical area. The bibliographical survey that follows focuses on the entire period of three hundred years and attempts to provide a panoramic view of European and Ottoman Jewries both as distinct subcommunities and in their broader connections with each other.


2019 ◽  
pp. 354-356
Author(s):  
David Sorkin

This concluding chapter presents ten theses on emancipation. One, emancipation is the principal event of modern Jewish history. Two, the term “emancipation” was historically polysemous: it referred to the liberation or elevation of numerous groups. Three, the emancipation process commenced around 1550 when Jews began to receive extensive privileges in eastern and western Europe and in some instances rights in a nascent civil society. Four, there were two legislative models of emancipation: conditional and unconditional. Five, there were three regions of emancipation: western, central, and eastern Europe. Six, the Ottoman Empire comprised a fourth region of emancipation. Seven, the equality of Judaism was fundamental to the Jews' equality. Eight, emancipation mobilized Jews politically. Nine, emancipation was ambiguous and interminable. Ten, emancipation was at the heart of the twentieth century's colossal events.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document