Jewish women's association

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The Jewish Women's Association (JFB) was founded in 1904 by Bertha Pappenheim and Sidonie Werner . The JFB, which Pappenheim headed for the first twenty years, was, so to speak, Bertha Pappenheim's life's work.

Founded in the spirit of the women's movement

The German-Evangelical Women's Association already existed from 1899 and the Catholic Women's Association from 1903 . It was the time of the "first wave of the women's movement " in which women fought for more rights. During these years there was a boom in the establishment of women's associations . With the founding of the JFB, an independent movement was formed between the German bourgeoisie and Jewish tradition, which saw itself as part of the bourgeois women's movement alongside (and sometimes long before) the Christian women's associations. From 1907 the JFB was a member of the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (BDF), which formed the umbrella organization for the civil women's associations.

tasks and goals

Unlike the men's associations, the Jewish Women's Association did not see itself as a defense organization against anti-Semitic agitation or emancipatory assimilation , but as an interest group for Jewish culture. He clearly acknowledged the Jewish tradition and wanted women to work within the framework of this tradition. Some of the women in the League came from families so far removed from Jewish tradition that the men tried to hide their Jewish identity. The women wanted to counteract this and developed a feminine awareness of religious charity (Zedaka). Emerging from the charity work of individual local women's groups, professional social work soon emerged in which global relationships were cultivated. In the course of this social work, the Central Welfare Office for Jews in Germany (ZWSt) was founded in 1917 .

Emancipation vs. Tradition

It was only with the founding of the JFB that there were hesitant political demands regarding the right to vote in the religious community and more say for women. Compared to the other denominational women's associations, these demands were not radical, but far-reaching within the religious community, because the exclusion of Jewish women from worship was deeply rooted in tradition. In this regard, the JFB wanted to free Judaism from the strictness of its formalism and thus distanced itself from the orthodox-oriented B'nai-B'rith sister associations . To this end, the JFB contacted rabbis and inquired about the possibilities that Jewish law afforded women. The movement thus questioned the supremacy of men and found itself on a fine line, because men only accepted the work of women if they functioned in their role and did not cross this invisible limit. With these efforts, the JFB did not deviate from the zeitgeist, but enforced its demands more decisively than the comparable Christian women's associations. This often resulted in difficulties with the Orthodox Jewish women who did not want to offend the men.

Self-image of the movement

The JFB saw itself primarily as a social alliance and not as a political one. It was also far from the JFB to revolutionize society, as the socialists demanded, its aim was to only change society cautiously in certain points. He sought a middle ground between traditional women's charities and militant feminist organizations. The members of the Confederation accepted their role of civil wife, but at the same time they were looking for new challenges. The JFB wanted to add value to the housework of women and to strengthen the self-esteem and self-confidence of women. In this regard, the JFB was concerned on the one hand with familiarizing young girls with housework and giving them perspectives for their later role as housewives and mothers. On the other hand, he advocated vocational training for Jewish girls so that they could provide for their own living if necessary. In addition, the JFB was able to convey the content of the housework to the girls relatively easily and without great expense. For this purpose, special courses were offered that conveyed empirical values ​​from housework. On the side, the charity work gave the women who were at the JFB a chance to show off their civic status.

Composition of the JFB

The JFB was an association of Jewish-middle-class women who could easily find time for the organization because of their social position. This women's association saw itself as representing the interests of all Jewish women in Germany, but mostly dealt with the problems of bourgeois housewives. While the JFB tried to attract members from the working class, it was unable to deal with their specific interests and problems. The JFB worked for the poor, not with them. This was also made clear in articles in JFB papers, in which readers and authors showed very little knowledge about the actual working conditions in the factories and about the lives of women workers. Added to this was the difficulty that shortly before the turn of the century many Eastern Jewish immigrants had joined the working class, who often took a more traditional view of their religion than the enlightened, liberal, bourgeois Jewish women. The socialist labor movements of the formerly traditional Jews could not find themselves in the goals and ideals of the JFB.

Combating trafficking in girls

Recognizing the problem

The JFB also saw one of its most important tasks in combating trafficking in girls , as Jewish girls were often sold to the West. Even at the time the JFB was founded, there was a widespread network of girl traffickers operating from Eastern Europe to North and South America. The Eastern European girls were often made false promises that they would be sold to brothels in large western cities. It is questionable to what extent bourgeois Jewish women knew about the trade before the turn of the century, since Bertha Pappenheim herself first took part in a conference on the question of girl trafficking in 1902.

The JFB is taking care of it

Since the JFB took care of the lot of Eastern European Jews , this federation was confronted with the problem much more than Christian-German women’s associations, which took note of the problem, but cared more about national women’s problems. The girls who were sold in the east were often exposed to social impoverishment. It even went so far that the European governments, with the help of the police, created “regulation measures” in order, among other things, to Prevent venereal diseases. It was particularly important to the JFB to combat this trafficking, as Jewish men kept silent for fear of anti-Semitic smear campaigns that could possibly arise from the high participation of Jews in the girl trafficking. In the decades after its founding in 1904, the JFB ran many campaigns and institutions that were supposed to offer protection and help for Eastern European girls. The first measures included transition homes for girls in need of protection and finding work opportunities. The Bertha Pappenheim women's association saw the most effective protection for these girls in vocational training, with which they could secure their livelihood. At the same time, the JFB always advocated early marriage and starting a family.

Programs against need

The Eastern European girls weren't the only ones in a predicament. In Germany, too, the situation of Jewish girls from the lower classes came to a head, because there was a large surplus of women at the end of the 19th century, and more and more Jewish men wanted to establish a professional existence first before they got married. For many Jewish women it became difficult to find a suitable man for life. Some bourgeois Jewish women married men from the working class, i.e. below their social class, in order not to be alone. The JFB also set up numerous institutions for these women, such as B. Girls' clubs and dormitories, an early marriage fund and the Beth-Jakob schools . The establishment of the Neu-Isenburg girls' dormitory , which was founded by Pappenheim and managed until her death in 1936, also dates back to this time .

further activities

The Jewish Women's Federation opened 1927 in Wyk auf Foehr , the Jewish children's home Foehr , which served primarily as a convalescent home for Jewish children from big cities. This institution existed until 1938.

time of the nationalsocialism

At the end of the 1920s, Pappenheim withdrew from active work at the JFB. Her functions were partially taken over by Hannah Karminski . After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933 and the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the federal government actively campaigned for emigration. Even Frieda H. Sichel , who is the successor Pappenheim had offered had in October 1935. emigrate . In the course of the November pogrom in 1938, the organization was banned and Ottilie Schönewald, who has been in office since 1934, was entrusted with the liquidation. In 1939 the JFB was transferred to the Reich Representation of German Jews . Hannah Karminski and Cora Berliner , who tried to continue social work in the Reich Representation, became victims of the Holocaust .

In 1953 the Jewish Women's Association was re-established in Germany.

literature

  • Marianne Brentzel : Anna O. Bertha Pappenheim. Biography. Reclam, Philipp, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 978-3-3792-0094-3 .
  • Marion A. Kaplan: Jewish bourgeoisie, woman and family in the empire. Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-930802-08-2 .
  • Marion A. Kaplan: The Jewish women's movement in Germany, organization and goals of the Jewish Women's Association 1904–1938. Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-7672-0629-3 .
  • Britta Konz: Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936): A life for Jewish tradition and female emancipation (history and gender). Campus Verlag, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 978-3-5933-7864-0 .
  • Jutta Dick and Marina Sassenberg: Jewish women in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lexicon on life and work. Reinbek near Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-499-16344-6 .
  • Inge Stephan (ed.): Jewish culture and femininity in the modern age. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-412-00492-8 .
  • Julius Carlebach (ed.): On the history of the Jewish woman in Germany. Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-926893-50-8 .
  • Yvonne Weissberg: An ethnic network. The Jewish Women's Association in Cologne 1933-1939. In: Ariadne. Forum for women's and gender history. Issue 61 (May 2012), pp. 40–47.
  • Ariadne. Forum for women and gender history (ed.): “Being Jewish, being woman, being a covenant”. The Jewish Women's Association 1904-2004. Issue 45–46 (June 2004).
  • Gudrun Maierhof: Assertiveness in chaos. Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933-1943. Frankfurt a. M. 2002.
  • Gudrun Maierhof: Jewish Women's Association. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 3: He-Lu. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02503-6 , pp. 255-259.

Web links

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  1. ^ Dick / Sassenberg, p. 306.
  2. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 26.
  3. ↑ Carlebach, p. 63.
  4. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 73.
  5. ↑ Carlebach, p. 63 f.
  6. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 66.
  7. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 121 f.
  8. ↑ Herzig, p. 207.
  9. ↑ Stephan, p. 257.
  10. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 126.
  11. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 179.
  12. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 274 ff.
  13. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 116 ff.
  14. ↑ Kaplan 1981, pp. 118 ff.
  15. ↑ Kaplan 1997, pp. 185 ff.
  16. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 100.
  17. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 181 ff.
  18. ↑ Kaplan 1997, pp. 160 ff.
  19. ↑ Kaplan 1997, p. 230 ff.