jpr / news Spring 2005
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JPR
and the Met launch Hate Crimes Against London's Jews: an analysis of
incidents recorded by the Metropolitan Police Service 2001-04* In
a unique piece of collaborative research between JPR and the Diversity
Directorate of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), JPR Civil Society
Fellow Dr Paul Iganski has been working with MPS Senior Social Researchers
Vicky Kielinger and Susan Paterson to analyse the nature and social context
of antisemitic incidents recorded by the Met. This report provides the
most comprehensive data analysis available to date.
The
topic is particularly salient given the rise in incidents in recent years
recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST). Both the European Union
Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (2004) and the U.S. State Department
(2005) have also drawn attention to the problem of street-level antisemitism
in recently published reports and in April 2004 the House of Commons debated
the apparent rise of antisemitic incidents and the prevailing antisemitic
climate in Britain.
In
opening the House of Commons debate, James Purnell MP argued that 'antisemitism
is on the rise and we must combat it as we do all forms of racism'’
Responding on behalf of the Government, Home Office Minister Fiona Mactaggart
reported that ‘together with the Institute for Jewish Policy Research,
the Metropolitan Police is conducting research into such incidents to
get a more accurate feel for their nature and to develop a more effective
response to them.' Commenting on the research a month earlier in the House
of Lords, Baroness Scotland of Asthal suggested that 'it is important
for us to understand the basis of such prejudice and dreadful behaviour,
because it is only by understanding it that we might be able to craft
something that will work to stop it.'This report presents its findings
with a view to understanding more clearly the dynamics of antisemitic
incidents recorded by the police in London. The analysis includes the
nature and location of antisemitic incidents as well as the characteristics
and possible motivations of offenders, the circumstances in which incidents
occur, the events that precipitate incidents and the consequences and
management of incidents by victims, offenders and the police.
This
allows the authors to interpret the social context behind reported incidents.
JPR
is publishing the findings as a book-length research monograph. In order
to understand the contemporary social environment in which this form
of hate crime occurs, the monograph also includes a short social profile
of the Jewish community 'at risk' in Greater London, written by David
Graham, JPR Fellow in Demography. The Jewish population of the MPS area
is estimated by JPR to be 160-200,000 people.
This
is groundbreaking criminological research and a new departure whereby
an independent, external research institution has been given access
to official police statistics and crime reports on antisemitic incidents
in a major city. It also reflects the positive outcome of a new collaborative
relationship between academic and professional researchers at JPR, the
CST and a statutory policing body, the Metropolitan Police Service.
It
is crucial that JPR ensures the widest possible dissemination of this
publication, which highlights a serious problem faced by the Jewish
community today. JPR intends to distribute complimentary copies to police
forces, local and national government officials and opinion leaders,
as well as to universities and public libraries throughout Britain,
Europe and the United States. We are already indebted to some generous
individuals who have helped us towards achieving this aim. However,
if you would like the opportunity of lending your support to this worthwhile
project,please contact JPR’s Development Director, Judith Russell,
at jrussell@jpr.org.uk.
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Antisemitic incidents recorded by the MPS from January 2001 to December 2004 (Total number of incidents = 1,296) |
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Trends
and patterns in antisemitic incidents The
focus of the research is on the calendar years 2001-2004. These four years
correspond with the second Intifada, which not only marked
an upsurge of violence against Jews in Israel, but also an increase in
attacks on Jews in a number of European countries.
In
looking at the pattern of incidents recorded across the four years (see
graph), it is immediately evident that there is no consistent level
of incidents recorded every month. The temporary peaks in the number of
incidents between September and November 2001, April and May 2002, April
2003 and May 2004 are particularly notable. Such peaks tend to coincide
with world political events, such as the aftermath of the terrorist attacks
against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001, the
violent conflict involving the Israel Defence Force in Jenin in April
2002, and the Iraq war in the spring of 2003 and so on.
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The
MPS Hate Crime Policy defines hate incidents in the following way:
Any
incident that is perceived by the victim, or any other person, to be racist,
homophobic, transphobic or due to a person’s religion, belief,
gender
identity or disability.
In
defining racist incidents, the MPS utilizes the definition outlined in
the 1999 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report:
Any
incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.
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Type of incidents recorded |
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•
criminal damage
•
racial incidents where no criminal offence has occurred
•
common assault
•
malicious phone/text/voice messages
•
threatening/abusive/insulting words or behaviour.
When
grouped together into wider allegation categories, 'threats and harassment'
make up over one in four of all incidents reported. Incidents of physical
violence account for approximately one in six of all incidents.
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Ethnic appearance of suspects according to MPS categories |
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In
the majority of incidents, the crime report did not specify any relationship
between the victim and the suspect. It has been demonstrated, however,
that in the case of racial incidents there is often some level of familiarity
between the victim and the suspect, in that the victim has at least some
level of suspicion that the suspect lives in the locality or is otherwise
known to them.
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Some key findings of the report: |
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Characteristics
of incidents Profile
of victims and suspects
•
Substantial numbers of victims of antisemitic incidents
report these either to the MPS or to the Community Security Trust. However,
regular dialogue
between the two agencies ensures that both are aware of any differences
in reporting.
•
Male victims experience proportionally more incidents
involving violence and fewer incidents involving malicious communications
than female victims.
•
Almost two thirds of incidents were carried out by
male suspects against male victims.
•
One third of antisemitic incidents are recorded in
the London Borough of Barnet, matching the proportion of London’s
Jewish population that lives in the borough.
•
The age range of victims is fairly evenly distributed
across the age groups, whereas the age range of suspects is skewed towards
the younger age groups.
•
Of those accused of committing anti-semitic incidents
(suspects who were charged, cautioned or had other proceedings taken against
them), the largest proportion falls within the 41-60 age ranges.
•
In just over three fifths of the antisemitic incidents in which there
was an‘accused’, the offender was a neighbour, and in some
instances a business associate.
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*
The report will be published by JPR at the end of June 2005. Further
details of JPR’s Civil Society programme, which undertakes research
into social trends, antisemitism and human rights, can be found on JPR's
website
http://www.jpr.org.uk/civil/index_civil.htm.
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Rethinking
the Jewish world for the 21st century This is an abridged version of a lecture delivered by JPR’s Director, Professor Barry Kosmin in March*. This was the first in a series of five lectures he gave in the 2005 Sherman Lecture Series at the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester. Today
at the dawn of the 21st century, a new historical era for the Jewish people
has begun. It has been created by a revolution in the size, structure
and distribution of the Jewish population of the world. To appreciate
the immensity of the change and to deal with the challenges, we must comprehend
the interaction between population and politics which has dominated Jewish
history in the past century.
The
whole world is aware of the tragedy of death and destruction
that began in Eastern Europe in 1914 and extended into the 1950s until
Stalin's death. The triumphs of the Jewish people were linked to the defeat of Fascism,
the establishment of a Jewish State, the defeat of Communism and the freeing
of Soviet Jewry. The transformation involved social, economic, educational, religious and
political changes that transformed World Jewry from a powerless, impoverished,
backward, pariah group into a self-reliant, prosperous, modern and diverse
nation. The transformation was dependent on major migrations and dislocations:
the vast majority relocated to our ancient homeland and to North America–
where 80 per cent of the world’s Jews now resides in prosperity
and freedom. A people is truly transformed when, as today, 90 per cent
of its members live in a different country and speak a different language
to their great-grandparents–an amazing statistic with huge implications.
It makes Jews unique among ethnic and national groups in the contemporary
world.
The
year 1905 witnessed two setbacks that were to dominate Jewish history
for most of the 20th century. The failure of the 1905 revolution sealed
the political fate of the Tsarist Empire and with it Russian Jewry, which
had been suffering oppression and discrimination since 1881. Prospects
for a democratic, liberal Russia vanished for nearly a century and so
did any hope of a free and prosperous Jewish future in Eastern Europe.
The
British 1905 Aliens Act was the first of many states’ restrictions
on Jewish migration from Eastern Europe, including Britain’s later
restrictions on migration to Mandatory Palestine. Unfortunately this was
not the first time England had set a precedent that was to devastate the
Jewish people. Medieval England was the birthplace both of the 'blood
libel' of ritual murder, with William the ‘boy martyr’ of
Norwich in 1144 and of state despoliation and expulsion of its entire
Jewish population by Edward I in 1290. This example of ethnic cleansing
of England’s Jews was followed by monarchs in France and western
and central Europe, culminating in the momentous expulsions from Spain
and Portugal in the 1490s. As a result, most of Europe's Jews were forced
east into Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Turkish Empire.
Jewish
population growth
In
the medieval and renaissance periods world Jewry was small in numbers,
probably only a million or so strong. Though by 1650 it stretched from
the West Indies to China, it had hardly grown in size. Moreover, only
half world Jewry was Ashkenazi. Yet after 1650 the Sephardim began to
count for less in population and political terms and by 1939 they totalled
only 1.5 million out of the 16.5 millions of world Jewry.
The
key fact which dominated Jewish history down to 1945, was the unprecedented
population explosion among the Jews of Poland, Lithuania and the surrounding
territories. Despite the Torah injunction, Jewish populations
have never been in the forefront of population explosion. In the ghettoes
of medieval Christendom and Islam, Jewish population growth was limited.
Small isolated populations facing social and economic restrictions, especially
restrictions on living space, have low marriage rates and poor health
records. Constant expulsions, forced conversions and violence limited
what natural growth occurred.
Yet
in the Kingdom of Poland a different, favourable situation applied. Following
the depredations of Chmelnitzsky and his Cossacks in 1648-50, the Jews
enjoyed a period of relative peace and unprecedented population growth
for over 200 years. The myth of Jewish oppression in Poland and the Pale
might make this difficult to comprehend, but no people could expand naturally
from under half a million in 1650 to 1.5 million in 1800, to over 5 million
in 1900 in an adverse environment. This created a crisis which did not
exist either before 1850 or after 1948: a Jewish population surplus. We
now live in an era of declining Jewish population but all the issues which
affected the Jewish world then–antisemitism, Russification, Nazism,
Communism, and our own creations of Bundism, Territorialism and Zionism–were
a reaction to an expanding and surplus Jewish population.
It
was this factor which was new in the nineteenth century, not prejudice
and discrimination–these had been features of Jewish life since
the rise of Christianity and Islam. In any society, once a human population
expands beyond the capability of its social economic system to support
it, a crisis occurs. The age structure also changes radically. The new
population is young and outnumbers the elderly and adult. Faced by such
a challenge, the society has to change radically regarding the distribution
of resources. The alternative is to export the surplus population. When
such a crisis occurs in a semi-feudal society, such as Tsarist Russia,
even ideologies as strange and new as Bolshevism and Zionism begin to
be considered,
for prior to 1940, few people took seriously the proposition that large-scale
population eradication/genocide was a feasible option. Dubnow quotes the
famous, almost prophetic remark of Tsarist Cabinet Minister, Pobyedonostzev
on the future of Russian Jewry: one third will die, one third will emigrate
and one third will be totally assimilated. Yet it brings home to us the
seriousness of the so-called 'Jewish Problem' in eastern Europe which
dominated political thinking among and about Jews for nearly a century.
The
most practical short-term demographic solution to an over-population crisis
is emigration. Technological, social and ideological changes after 1850
made mass emigration appear a practical option for large numbers of
Ostjuden, east European Jews, who emigrated in greater proportion
than other European peoples between 1880 and 1914. In that period one
in three East European Jewish families left their countries of origin.
Jews formed the majority of emigrants among the nationals of Russia, Austria-Hungary
and Romania. The extraordinary size of Jewish outflow can be gauged from
the fact that the next most emigrant people were the Italians, of whom
less than 10 per cent left their homeland.
Between
1900-1914 an average of 135,000 Jews left eastern Europe each year. Leaders
and scholars were beginning to become aware of the dimensions of the changes
underway. Even the Bund, the socialist party, which saw emigration as
an anomaly, devoted attention to the subject. In 1913 the authoritative
analyses of Kaplun, and Kogan and Hersch on this topic were published.
As early as 1903, following the Kishinev Pogrom, Dubnow had written his
pamphlet, The Historic Moment, which
compared the situation to that of 1492. By 1914 all these scholars recognised
that a new Jewish social and economic centre had been established in America
and that there was a possibility of establishing a complementary spiritual
centre in Palestine.
The
emigration crisis
The
first tragedy for east European Jewry that these scholars failed to foresee
was the First World War and its aftermath. From 1915-20 mass emigration
was halted; 700,000 more Jews than predicted remained in eastern Europe.
Moreover, when emigration restarted in the 1920s, it never rose above
44,000 a year. Even before Hitler, the oppressed Jews of Poland, Romania,
Hungary and the Baltic States emigrated at a rate of 40,000 per annum,
a mere one third of the natural increase.The reason for this drastic reduction
in emigration in the interwar years was political. The milieu created
by the triumph of Social Darwinist and eugenicist thought meant that the
potential receiving countries became less concerned with numbers to fill
empty spaces and more concerned with the quality of the population. The
US Quota Acts of the early 1920s can even be seen as racist-based forerunners
of Nazi population ideology. Northern Europeans with the correct physical
and mental attributes were desired; southern and eastern Europeans could
apply elsewhere. Even prior to the 1929 crash, they were only acceptable
in Argentina. The British Dominions followed the US lead in this policy
of exclusion of 'undesirable' racial types, particularly Jews.
The
economic crisis and uncertainties of this period also led to a conservative,
defensive attitude towards immigrants. They were no longer seen as additional
workers and markets, but as economic competitors who introduced alien,
undesirable social and political ideas. Thus, in 1931, only 30,000 east
Europeans Jews successfully emigrated. In 1929 Australia halted immigration
and in 1931 South Africa introduced a Quota Act against east European
immigrants, which was later extended in 1936 to include Germans when Jews
became the majority of entrants in this category. By 1932 Palestine had
therefore become the chief emigrant destination for Jews. In 1933, prior
to the impact of Nazi rule, 25,000 Jews went to Palestine, compared with
only 2,500 to Argentina, 3,500 to Canada and 6,000 to the USA. Thus, crucially,
before the rise of Hitler, outlets for Jewish emigrants were closed. Only
Palestine remained. Moreover it was not Hitler but longer-term historical
trends which brought Jewish interest and attention to Palestine as a solution
for the Jewish problem. Nevertheless, even
Jewish Agency planners were uncertain that Palestine could solve the surplus
Jewish population problem given the pressure and numbers involved. They
too were infected by the climate of conservative opinion and the bias
towards productive, agricultural settlement which afflicted the Anglo-Saxon
world. In 1933 Ruppin reckoned it was only possible, given current resources,
to settle 15,000 souls a year in the Jewish homeland. Such figures show
the panic and sense of doom which afflicted Jewish leaders
when the established communities of Germany, central Europe, and even
Italy, were suddenly added to the crisis communities of eastern Europe.
The refugee problem merged into the general European Jewish problem. By
1938 the number of Jews in danger was of unimaginable
magnitude.
The
final straw was the 1939 British White Paper restricting Jewish immigration
to Palestine. The sudden elimination of the Zionist option and the closure
of the most promising haven for Jewish immigrants was a devastating blow.
The fact that no suitable outlets could be found to deal with the east
European Jewish population problem and the accompanying dehumanization
and exclusion of this 'problem' population made genocidal thinking almost
inevitable. The cunning of the Nazis was demonstrated by their policy
between 1936-9 of trying to export their unwanted Jews to an uninterested
and hostile world almost to prove their point about Jewish inferiority
and undesirability. If people were so concerned about Germany’s
Jews, why didn’t everyone rush to receive them? If Jews were such
an asset, why did the nations of the world battle with each other to be
the first to close the doors against them and push them on elsewhere?
Nobody wanted to be the dumping ground for Jews, not even Madagascar.
Even before Hitler, Jews were surplus to requirements. The Jewish world
and its leadership was demoralized and almost catatonic even before the
Final Solution and Holocaust began. Thus the prospect of mass elimination
which faced the 5 or 6 million hopeless inhabitants of the Jewish communities
of Eastern Europe was no accident of history.
The
war against the Jews was the one permanent Nazi victory of World War II
as the body-count clearly illustrates. Nevertheless Jews
can take some credit for the Allied success since British, American and
Soviet Jews were all overrepresented in the military forces of their countries,
as were other Jews in the partisan and resistance movements. The most
significant part militarily was played by the half million Jews in the
Red Army which produced
121 Heroes of the Soviet Union, 70 generals and 2 admirals. Four female
Jewish pilots became Heroes of the Soviet Union, including Polina Gelman
who carried out 860 bombing missions. Yet in 1953 after the so-called
'Doctors' Plot’ and during Stalin’s anti-Zionist campaign,
over 300 senior Jewish officers were purged. By 1970 no Jews remained
in senior posts in the Soviet armed forces.
There
is some poetic justice in the fact that the betrayal of the sacrifice
and bravery of the Jews of the USSR by the apparatchki of the Communist
Party helped contribute to the implosion of that 'Evil Empire'. Open discrimination
and campaigns of ‘anti-Zionist’ persecution against the supposed
‘agents of American imperialism’ deprived the Soviet Union
of some of its most talented citizens. The state's best educated and most
urbanized nationality became the core of the dissident and human rights
movement. In part Soviet persecution of its 'Zionist cliques' was introduced
to pander to the Arab world. Inevitably, after 1967 there was an upsurge
in Jewish nationalism which went far beyond the refusenik
movement. As a result, when the prison doors opened in 1979, and again
after 1989, though half a million Jews emigrated to the USA and Germany,
twice as many moved to Israel. This mass aliyah, which included tens of thousands of engineers and scientists,
along with numerous musicians, not only transformed and strengthened the
state of Israel but also changed the balance of the Middle East conflict.
'G.I.
Jews' and the Jewish Brigade
To
return to World War II, perhaps of even greater social and political consequence
was what happened on the western front. Hundreds of thousands of veteran
American 'G.I. Jews' were allowed by the G.I Bill to gain college educations
and so transform the Jewish occupational profile. This propelled the upward
social mobility of American Jews from 33rd among America’s ethnic
groups in 1930 to number one or two in terms of income and educational
achievement by 1990. More important was the political education that wartime
service produced. The whole community was empowered by its patriotic support
for the war. The shocked liberators of Europe became the most forceful
exponents of the 'Never Again' mindset of American Jewry. Assertive,
activist Americans with money and vision replaced the supplicant, diffident
Jews of the pre-war years. They put their growing philanthropic muscle
behind the rescue and resettlement efforts of the United Jewish Appeal
and their political energy created the powerful Israel lobby. Their triumph
was the cross party consensus in Washington for a US-Israel alliance that
guaranteed the economic and military
security of the Jewish state from 1970 until today.
Finally,
the World War II Jewish Brigade of the so-called Palestinian Jews was
part of Ben Gurion’s strategy for securing a Jewish state that he
borrowed from Zeev Jabotinsky. He, Chaim Weizmann and Moshe Sharett struggled
hard against British reluctance to form an autonomous Jewish fighting
unit. They realized that the uncompromising hostility of the Arab world
towards Zionism meant that conflict with the armies of the Arab states,
not just local Palestinian Arab militias, was inevitable. Wartime events
confirmed that assessment. Egyptian army officers made secret overtures
to the German Afrika Korps for a joint invasion of Palestine. A pro-Axis
army coup in Iraq in 1941 led immediately to a pogrom in Baghdad with
400 Jews killed. And the national and religious leader of the Palestinian
Arabs, the Grand Mufti, travelled to Berlin to negotiate personally with
Hitler the final solution for the 'Zionist problem'.
The
'ingathering of the exiles'
The
Zionist strategic imperative was also why the British authorities disbanded
the Jewish Brigade as quickly as possible in 1946. Nevertheless,
it did much to 'Zionize' the camp survivors in Europe and assist illegal
emigration. Having 5,000 Jewish soldiers trained in modern warfare was
a great asset in the War of Independence. The Brigade provided 2 chiefs
of staff and many officers for the new Israel Defence Forces. The Zionist
leadership was realistic enough to know that the United Nations would
not just give the Jews a country on a plate and that the Arab world would
oppose any attempt to establish Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East.
Contrary to the current media myth, nobody just handed the Jews a state
as compensation
for the Shoah–certainly not the Europeans. It was won by the bravery
and blood of the Yishuv and secured by the political
strength, enthusiasm and tzedakah of American Jewry.
Thus
the half century after 1945 ushers in the age of triumph in the Jewish
world. It saw the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and their erstwhile
allies, the Arab nationalists. In terms of the migration story it began
the period of successful rescue that lasted until 1990. However, on nearly
every occasion the Jews had to overcome hard opposition to their dreams
and plans. Even in 1945 the international community wanted the Jewish
survivors of the Shoah to return to their countries of origin, whereas the Jews
wanted to resettle in the New World or their ancient homeland. Slowly
the efforts of world Jewry redirected Jewish migration back to its earlier
trajectories of America and Eretz Yisrael. The 'ingathering
of the exiles' began with the rescue of the D.P. camp survivors. This
was followed in quick succession by a series of 'magic carpet' rescues
of Jews from Yemen in 1949, from Iraq in 1951, from Egypt, Libya and Hungary
in 1956, from Morocco in 1958, Rumania in the 1960s, Iran and Syria in
the 1980s and Ethiopia in 1985. The major campaign for Soviet Jewry under
the slogan 'Let my people go' began in the 1970s, culminating in a great
victory in the 1990s.
The
inversion of the Jewish position from the Evian Conference of Refugees
in 1938 to the Soviet Jewry Brussels Conferences of the 1970s is notable.
World Jewry was low-key and supplicating in its approaches to Roosevelt
and other Western political leaders. The low profile taken by American
Jewish leaders on the non-fulfilment of the
German immigration quota to the USA in
the late 1930s contrasted greatly with their assertive demands for the
fulfilment of the spirit of the Helsinki Final Act.
Of
course the morality of the different cases was not the key factor. There
were dramatic changes in the policies of the Republican Party in the US
towards its immigration policy and the Soviet Union, as well as the fortuitous
rise of Evangelical Christian Zionism and the socio-economic position
and outlook of American Jewry. The largest, richest, best educated, best
organized, most generous, vibrant and institutionally complete diaspora
community ever is now fully integrated into the most dominant superpower
militarily, economically and culturally since the Roman Empire. And
a superpower that proclaims its faith in Judeo-Christian values.
It
should be some comfort that the terms of trade changed so rapidly over
a few decades in the latter part of the 20th century. The Jewish masses
ceased to be mere passive objects but became actors in the historical
dramas of our time. That Jewish populations now provide migrants rather
than refugees and that they have choices as to where and how they want
to live is a revolution in circumstances and a truly historic transformation.
The full version of this lecture can be found under 'Lectures' in the Civil Society section of the JPR website http://www.jpr.org.uk/civil/index_civil.htm |
Across Europe, Jewish festivals, performances and publications abound. Jewish museums have opened by the dozens and synagogues and Jewish quarters are being restored, often as tourist attractions. Meanwhile, klezmer concerts and Jewish exhibitions draw enthusiastic—and often overwhelmingly non-Jewish—crowds. But what makes this Jewish cultural re-emergence 'Jewish?' Can Jewish culture exist without Jews? This was explored at a recent JPR seminar by Ruth Ellen Gruber, author of Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe, which was chaired by Professor Jonathan Webber, Unesco Chair in Jewish and Interfaith Studies, University of Birmingham. The seminar attracted thirty Jewish artists, playwrights, cultural presenters, film makers and editors. Ruth
Ellen Gruber explained that she sought to explore the ‘ambiguities
of what is perceived as Jewish culture in 21st century Europe in fostering
Jewish identity as well as projecting the Jewish image to non-Jews'.
As an example, she cited the annual Festival of Jewish Culture
in Krakow, launched in 1988, which she termed 'ground zero for a Jewish
culture presented in an environment where there are no Jews living'.
Gruber
uses the term 'virtually Jewish' to describe the emergence of Jewish culture
carried out by non-Jews—often with a flavour that alternates between
Anatevka and Disneyland. Yet she conceeds that 'what is taking place is something authentic' it may not
be authentic Jewish culture, but it is an authentic artistic expression
influenced by
Jewish culture.’
For
non-Jews, growing up in large swathes of Europe effectively stripped of
Jewish life, virtual Jewish culture ‘fills in the blank spaces’
left by the Holocaust. It also represents a 'way in' for Jews themselves,
enabling them to break out of their isolation and 'recharge their
batteries'. It serves as a catalyst to an emerging, organic Jewish phenomenon.
Is
all this good for the Jews? On the whole Gruber believes it is, but with
certain caveats. 'A sizeable part of the European population has begun
to know something of what Jews were - and are - and to recognize that
Jews and Jewish culture formed a rich, integral part of their history'.
And yet, she warned, 'without a living Jewish dimension, the virtual Jewish
world may become a sterile desert—or a haunted Jewish Never-Never
Land'.
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The
law of the land is the law...
Rabbi
Rosen explained that in antiquity, as Jews lost their autonomy to Persia, Greece and Rome, they redefined
their relations with other peoples. During the Talmudic period, rabbinic
authorities stipulated that Jews could carry out normal business and association
with non-Jews provided the latter observed the Seven Noachide Laws, which
were regarded as the moral yardstick for all humanity. Along with prohibitions
against murder, idolatry, adultery and theft, there was a requirement
for operating 'a legal system with courts of law' to adjudicate civil
matters. Non-Jews could be regarded as 'the pious of the nations of the
world' if such legal systems were in place. Subsequently,
the rabbis developed two new accommodating principles: mishum
eiva, to ignore the letter of halachah (Jewish law) for the sake of good relations with non-Jews,
and mipnei darkei shalom, to waive some of its rigours in order to live in peace with
non-Jewish neighbours.
By
the Third Century CE, it was the Babylonian Rabbi Samuel who developed
a theory that said, in effect, that as long as Jews were living in exile,
their relationship with the wider non-Jewish community must conform to
the principle of dina de-malchkhuta dina (the
law of the kingdom takes priority). While originally pertaining to taxation,
this principle became a legal means for giving priority to the civil law
of the host country, while at the same time allowing Jews to govern their
internal affairs autonomously.
However,
during the Enlightenment, this medieval doctrine was turned into a rationale
for the requirement of loyalty to the states in which they lived. Samuel’s
dictum therefore effectively served as the Jewish legal basis for accepting
the quid pro quo of the Emancipation
Contract during the French Revolution ('to the Jews as a nation - nothing;
to the Jews as French citizens - everything'), which in turn became a
legal framework under which most European Jews were granted all the rights
of full citizenship.
It
is for these and other historical reasons, Rabbi Rosen said, that British
Jewry has been sensitive to all issues affecting existing civic-religious
accommodations, whether in the form of challenges to kashrut,
religious divorce, or recent calls by British Muslims for public recognition
of shariah law.
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JPR
at Limmud In
addition, JPR showed two films, Inside Jewish Venice, directed by Carlo Hinterman (Italy) and
the award-winning The man who loved Haugesund, directed
by Jon Haukeland and Tore Vollan (Norway), which were commissioned by
the European Association of Jewish Culture, an independent body established
by JPR together with the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris
to help create the conditions in which Jewish creativity in Europe can
thrive.
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Annual
lunch at the House of Lords for JPR Patrons
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Dr
Colin Shindler, Fellow in Israeli Studies at the School of Oriental and
African Studies, gave a seminar in February at JPR on The
changing narratives of the Guardian at
which he presented some ideas on how and why that newspaper’s attitudes
to Israel have changed over the years.
In
March, Professor Amiram Gonen, a Visiting Fellow at JPR who is researching
the Charedi community and the welfare state, discussed The agenda and programmes of a policy studies institute on the basis of the experience of the Floersheimer Institute
for Policy Studies in Jerusalem, of which he is Director.
In
April, JPR hosted two consultations with American lay leaders. The first
was a visit by Harold Tanner, recently elected as chairman of the Conference
of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Mr Tanner is president
of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Institute and a former president of
the American Jewish Committee, which co-ordinates the Transatlantic Institute's
activities. He was joined by Transatlantic Institute Fellow Miriam D'Jaen.
JPR
also met with Gene Ribacoff, past president of the 'Joint' (the Joint
Distribution Committee or JDC) to discuss JPR research in Europe. He was
joined by Alberto Senderey, general director of Community Development
for the JDC in Paris and Pablo Weinsteiner, newly appointed director of
the JDC International Centre for Community Development.
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JPR
featured on 'The Westminster Hour' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_westminster_hour/4117959.stm |
jpr / news is edited by Judith Russell
