Eastern Jews and Western Jews

The complementary pair of terms Eastern Jews and Western Jews (also: Polacken and Jeckes ) was first coined around 1900 by the Jewish publicist Nathan Birnbaum , who thus characterized two social profiles within European Judaism that were shaped by the different living conditions in East and West. Because “East” and “Jews” were negative terms in the parlance of nationalist circles in the German Empire and Austria-Hungary , “East Jews” became the catchphrase of ethnic-anti-Semitic journalism.

term

The distinction between Western Jews and Eastern Jews traditionally describes less the different geographical origin than the socio-cultural, religious and linguistic differences between Ashkenazim in Western and Eastern Europe, and primarily the more advanced assimilation , urbanization and abandonment of the (Western) Yiddish people in the West Language or its adaptation to the German standard language, compared to the ghettoization and way of life of the shtetl , adherence to the Halacha and the retention of the (Eastern) Yiddish language, which was further developed in contact with Slavic languages , which were regarded as typical of Eastern European Judaism.

In the course of the strong migration of Eastern European Jews to the west since the 1880s and the associated social conflicts and problems, the described differences were assessed from a "Western Jewish" point of view as characteristics of "Eastern Jewish" backwardness, while advocates of Eastern European Jewry its cultural independence from conformance and self-disclosure Western European Jews emphasized. The stereotypes developed in this inner-Jewish dispute with regard to the Eastern Jews were then further developed in the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Weimar Republic in Germany and the First Republic in Austria as well as during National Socialism and reinterpreted to the idea that in "Eastern Jews" the "inferiority." ”Manifest in a particularly obvious and unveiled form that characterizes the“ Jewish race ”as such.

Since the end of the Second World War, there has only been a limited distinction made between Western and Eastern Jews. German-speaking anti-Semites, however, continue to associate the term Eastern Jews with negative connotations, especially in connection with Jewish quota refugees from the successor states of the Soviet Union .

See also

• Jews in Eastern Europe
• History of the Jews in Germany
• History of the Jews in Austria
• Jecke

literature

• Steven E. Aschheim: Caftan and Cravat: The "Ostjude" as a Cultural Symbol in The Development of German Anti-Semitism. In: Seymour Drescher, David Sabean and Allan Sharlin (Eds.): Political Symbolism in Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of George L. Mosse. Transaction Books, New Brunswick (NJ) 1982, pp. 81-99.
• David A. Brenner: Marketing identities: The Invention of Jewish Ethnicity in "East and West" . Wayne State University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8143-2684-6 .
• Trude Maurer : Eastern Jews in Germany: 1918–1933. Hans Christian, Hamburg 1986 (= Hamburg contributions to the history of the German Jews, 12), ISBN 3-7672-0964-0 .
• Trude Maurer: The Development of the Jewish Minority in Germany (1780-1933). Recent research and open questions. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1992, ISBN 3-484-60383-6 . (= International Archive for the Social History of German Literature , Special Issue 4)
• Trude Maurer: The perception of Eastern Jews in Germany 1910–1933. In: LBI Information: News from the Leo Baeck Institutes in Jerusalem, London, New York and the Scientific Working Group of the LBI in Germany. No. 7, 1997, pp. 67-85.
• Ludger Heid : Eighteenth picture: The Eastern Jew . In: Julius H. Schoeps , Joachim Schlör (eds.): Images of hostility towards Jews. Anti-Semitism - Prejudices and Myths. Augsburg 1999, ISBN 3-8289-0734-2 , pp. 241-251.
• Karin Huser Bugmann: Schtetl on the Sihl; Immigration, life and everyday life of the Eastern Jews in Zurich (1880-1939). Zurich (1998), Chronos Verlag ISBN 3-905312-58-1 .
• Joseph Roth : Places. - Leipzig, Reclam 1990, ISBN 3-379-00575-4 , pp. 209-278 ("Jews on the move": "East Jews in the West" - "The Jewish town" - "The western ghettos" (Vienna, Berlin, Paris ) - "A Jew goes to America" ​​- "The situation of the Jews in Soviet Russia").

Web links

• Excerpt from the introduction to Werner Portmann, Siegbert Wolf: "Yes, I fought" - From dreams of revolution, 'air people' and children of the shtetl , Unrast, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-89771-452-3
• "Eastern Jews" against "Western Jews"?

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ezra Mendelsohn: The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars . Bloomington 1983, ISBN 0-253-3316-0-9 , pp. 6-8.
2. ↑ Barbara Hahn: The Others - Eastern Jews in Germany before 1933 . In: Social science information . Volume 18, 1989, No. 3, pp. 163-169.
3. ^ Lars Rensmann : Democracy and the image of the Jews: Anti-Semitism in the political culture of the Federal Republic of Germany . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-531-14006-X , p. 263.
4. ↑ Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (ed.): The importance of anti-Semitism in current German right-wing extremism . Cologne, September 2002 ( Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 11, 2011 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. PDF, 446 kB) , P. 15f.