The Wandering Jews

Introduction to Judaism RS#210

Dr. Menachem Feuer

November 30, 2010

By Douglas Tennant

The Wandering Jews

                        That the Jews are wanderers, and in more ways than one, is indisputable. From the earliest of times Abram, wandered his way from Ur and “settled in Canaan some time between the twentieth and nineteenth centuries BCE” (Armstrong 11). Moses and the Israelites ‘wandered’ in the desert for 40 years (Good Exodus 16:35) and the great exiles of 587 BCE and 135 CE (Scheindlin 22, 54) were the genesis of legendary diasporic wanderings.  After these significant exiles, other forced mass migrations and various expulsions (151), the evolution of a large segment of the Jews into the Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities at least brought them some geographic stability in eastern and western Europe. Even during these way stations in time, the Jews continued to experience wanderings (emigration) to the USA, back to Palestine and ‘to and fro’ throughout Europe depending upon who was expelling or persecuting them at the time (Scheindlin 153,163). But more interestingly, I posit that the Jews of ‘modernity’ eventually came to experience different types of ‘wandering’—something more than just moving from one place to another. They experienced a metaphysically evolutionary journey involving religion, culture and identity that continues to this very day. Indeed, the result of the Jewish wanderings both geographically and metaphysically has had a profound effect on our western world as noted by Cahill when he calls them a “race of wanderers who are the progenitors of the Western world” (3).  “[The Jews] have always been an evolving people, and the journey has taught [them] that change is the essence of life, because life is dynamic” (Drucker 175).

Enlightenment and assimilation

Haskalah, the Enlightenment “form of Judaism emerged in the eighteenth century, alongside traditional Talmudic Judaism and Hasidism” (Ludwig 111). Moses Mendelssohn was the progenitor of the Jewish Enlightenment and he “attempted to build a bridge between Judaism and Christian Germany by providing an interpretation of Judaism as a rational system of ethics thoroughly compatible with modern scientific thought” (Ludwig 111). As Scheindlin puts it, “[s]kepticism …and other Enlightenment philosophies broke the monopoly of Christianity over the intellectual life of the West, opening…an evaluation of Judaism and of the Jewish condition free of the burden of theological opprobrium” (164). Notwithstanding the “remarkable Council of the Four Lands, a kind of Jewish parliament that regulated Jewish life in eastern Europe” from the sixteenth to the early eighteenth century (Scheindlin 153), newer and broader ‘secular’ concepts about statehood and emancipation through citizenship were all the rage during the Enlightenment period and the Jews ‘wandered’ back and forth in a sort of balancing act (Ludwig 111) between their traditional world and their new found ‘enlightenment’. On this Ruth Wisse writes:

Heinrich Heine, who called conversion to Christianity his "ticket of admission" to European culture, likened Jews to a prince whom "black magic" had transformed into a dog: "All week long he goes on scraping/Through life's excrement and sweepings/To the mockery of jeers of street boys." Only on Friday evenings, while ushering the Sabbath into his own home, does the dog resume its human shape (Wisse).

Language played an integral part during this time period. Yiddish, which had been evolving for many, many years, was now in wide spread use as a modern literary language in eastern Europe (Scheindlin 176). In Germany, Jews assimilated linguistically to ordinary German so that western Yiddish gradually disappeared (178) leaving Yiddish to be used by the millions of Hasidic Jews living in poverty in eastern Europe and the Pale of Settlement (Feurer on Hasidic Jews 19 Oct. 2010). Meanwhile in western Europe, the bible ‘wandered’ from its traditional Hebrew into German via a translation by Mendelssohn using “Hebrew letters so that it would be completely accessible to them” (Scheindlin 165). With their new found linguistic options Jews are for the “first time starting to write their own history” (Feurer on Emancipation in Europe 19 Oct. 2010).

With these ‘enlightened’ opportunities available to Jews as individuals rather than as a tight knit Judaic community, assimilation into their new found community of the state became a reality and “multitudes responded to their freedom by loosening their ties to the Jewish community and the Jewish tradition or abandoning [and ‘wandering’ away from] them altogether in favour of French or German or national identity” (Scheindlin 165). Interestingly, in eastern Europe, while Yiddish became the ‘everyday language’ of the Jews in their press and schools, “the social forces favoring the integration of Jews into European life were unfavorable to Yiddish, as they were to other aspects of Jewish identity. [As with their western European cousins m]ost urban eastern European Jews adopted Russian or Polish in the early twentieth century” (Scheindlin 179). Not to be outdone though, Yiddish wandered over to America “on a large scale by the eastern European immigration between 1880 – 1924” (179). Due to assimilation pressures in the USA and with the eventual designation of Hebrew as the Zionist language of choice, “by the third generation, few descendants of eastern European Jews knew more than a handful of Yiddish words” (179).

Enlightenment and Religion

            With all that was going on during the Enlightenment, societal assimilation, nationalism, new linguistic options and freedom from traditional Talmudic Judaism (including seeds left over from Sabbatarianism, the nihilism of Jacob Frank and the massive spread of Hasidism), the ingredients for a new recipe of Judaism were ‘wandering’ about western Europe (Armstrong 333, and Scheindlin 168,177). To address the destructive nature of the concepts of the Enlightenment, including the notion that Judaism “was [now] reduced from the status of a national identity to that of a religion” (Scheindlin 168), a reform movement was initiated in Germany. It seems that the intention of this ‘wandering’ from the traditional Judaic doctrinal paradigm was to ease the tensions and sense of loss between the more orthodox/traditional Jews and those who were slipping away as individuals from the Jewish nation and into their ‘new found citizenship’. The reformers, inspired by Mendelssohn, wanted to “[reform] traditional Jewish practice in keeping with the ideas and realities of modern, scientific and secular life” (Ludwig 111). Among other aspects included in these reforms, services were now conducted in German, including some prayers and sermons, synagogues were renamed ‘temples’, organ music was introduced, the sexes sat together during worship (sure sounds like rudimentary mimicry of Lutheran church structure) and dietary laws were modified (Scheindlin 169 and Ludwig 111). Eventually these reforms were solidified into Reform Judaism in western Europe and England and then ultimately throughout the western world.  It is important to note that “[t]hese Reform Jews emphasised the ethical dimensions of Judaism more that the ritualistic aspects and they rejected the idea that the messianic age would mean a return to Zion” (Ludwig 111). As one might expect, the reforms to Judaism did not stop with the Reform movement.

A third and more moderate trend eventually known as Conservative Judaism was born out of the uneasiness of European Jews within Reform Judaism over “arguments based on enlightened and rational grounds” (Ludwig 112). To this end, Zacharias Frankel (1801-75) “broke from the Reformers. [L]ike them, [he] rejected the literal truth of traditional religious doctrine but he [was not] able to reject the national component of Jewish identity as expressed in traditional ritual observances” (Scheindlin 171). Subsequently, as waves of eastern European/Russian immigrants ‘wandered’ to America in the late 1800s they “shied away from the modernized Reform synagogues and were attracted to the Conservative congregations, which kept many of the traditional rituals but opened doors for the newly arrive Jews to [assimilate] into American society” (Ludwig 113). 

As Reform and Conservative Judaism consolidated into formal entities, so did the Orthodox Jews in Europe and America. Led by Rabbi Hirsch (1808-1888), Orthodox leaders “attempted to interpret [Judaism] so it would be more attractive to enlightened modern people, but they insisted on the divine authority of the entire Torah and the necessity of observing all the traditional rituals” (Ludwig 112).

Zionism

            While western European Jews were content to ‘wander on’ with their assimilation  and acculturation into their respective nation states with their concomitant religious and linguistic reforms during the later part of the nineteenth century, their Yiddish speaking cousins in eastern Europe were still mired in poverty and indeed struggling to survive in the Pale of Settlement.  Notwithstanding early literary works by Moses Hess, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and Leon Pinkster in Germany and eastern Europe respectively on the subject of a Jewish homeland, it was terrible anti-Semitic persecution during the Russian pogroms of 1881 that “precipitated the emergence of the nationalist Jewish organisations known collectively as the …Love of Zion movement” (Scheindlin 219) amongst eastern Europeans Jews.

But it was journalist Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), who, after being so appalled at the blatant anti-Semitism observed during the Dreyfus Affair, “devoted the  rest of his life to seeking a global solution for the Jewish problem” (Scheindlin 220). Herzl came to the conclusion that “Jews did not belong in Europe anymore – they had to leave” (Feurer on Zionism 19 Oct. 2010). Though little support came his way from “Western Jews, [Herzl] was acclaimed by the Jews of eastern Europe” (Scheindlin 220). Herzl went on to organise the First Zionist Congress in “Switzerland in 1897 and a Zionist Organization was established with the aim of creating ‘for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law’ ” (Janowsky 49). On Zionism, Ezrahi states that “[f]or Jews who had developed a culture of substitution in all the lands of their dispersion, reconnecting with Zion or Jerusalem, meant an intoxication—and toxic—encounter with the only place that had the status of the real” (4). It is interesting to note that early on in the Zionist movement Herzl was of the contention that ‘anywhere but Europe’ was fine with him for a Jewish homeland while his Jewish brothers and sisters in the Pale of Settlement were of the opinion that the location for their Jewish homeland was ‘nowhere but Palestine’ (Scheindlin 220). It would be very interesting from a ‘what if’ viewpoint what soft spoken Ezrahi would have had to say if Herzl’s Ugandan model for the Jewish state had prevailed (220). Suffice it to say that after much history of ‘wandering’ including, two world wars, the impetus from the horror of the anti-Semitic laced Holocaust, a ‘war of independence’ and determined individual and collective effort, the State of Israel was proclaimed established on May 14, 1948.

Judaism today

So who are the Jews of today? Where are they wandering to and fro in their mind space nowadays?  How has Judaism adapted to or challenged its historical context? What are the issues at the forefront of Judaism today? Is there one main issue?

Sidra Ezrahi lays all things Jewish out on the Jewish stage, I believe, when she writes:

The secret of the Jews in the years of their exile was in having and not having: in having the memory and the promise of home and the freedom of the road, in cherishing a home without having to defend it or even keep its roads free of potholes. Turning toward Jerusalem in prayer from whatever spot [a Diasporic Jew] inhabited, the Jew was reminded that the sacred center was somewhere else; it was the not –here.

Jerusalem, for her part, is preserved in the imagination over the centuries of Israel’s wandering as… a shrine suspended in its ruins. Nothing significant can happen elsewhere, but nothing significant will happen there until the Jews return to complete the redemption (236).

Ezrahi calls to the forefront the one main issue for being – homecoming. If all Jews were to return to the land they could all then focus on ‘normalised’ relations with their neighbours. She laments over the ‘tension’ between the Jews of Israel and the Jews of America and unfulfilled Zionism. She outright calls for all Jews to quit ‘wandering’ and return to the land, to the center of ‘Jewish’ gravity. In relation to the struggle between Zionism and Diasporism in Phillip Roth’s Operation Shylock (her poster child for the Diasporist schlemiels), Ezrahi states that “the choice that is… at the heart of Jewish culture at the end of the second millennium as it was at the beginning of the first [is] between life as ‘fiction’ and life as ‘fact’; between fiction that is diasporic privilege, unmoored and fanciful, and fact as the ingathering of the material, obligatory world” (225).

Notwithstanding the importance of the tension between exile and homecoming, America vs. Israel, in the meantime, we are compelled to be aware of the influence and thought of the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. “Uniqueness is based upon your relationship to others – to the Other – you are vulnerable with respect to the Other. Judaism is also based on this Other and the responsibility to the Other” (Feurer on Levinas Sept. 14, 2010). Oona Ajzenstat captures in her book Driven back to the Text that Levinas’ Judaism has little to do with the questions Jews often ask of themselves – who is a Jew? or, what is required of a Jew ethically or halachically? – and everything to do with the fundamental questions that Jews [Diasporic or Redempted], and everyone should ask, now more than ever: what am I to do for the different one who stands before me?” (18).

Another pressing, voluminous and perhaps enigmatically complicated issue regarding Judaism of today is that of anti-Semitism. As we were exposed to in class, this issue is extremely complex, ancient/current and intricately wrapped up in many layers of world geo-economic and bio-politics. Moreover, anti-Semitism is fraught with such a horrific history (e.g. Holocaust) and prone to such vitriolic emotions it is almost viewed as an enigma. However, perhaps there is a way for Wisses’ concept to prevail whereby the respective parties (Palestinians & Israelis?) can stop their finger wagging and begin to see the Other, to borrow a term from Levinas, so that it can become a resolvable ‘dilemma’ (Feurer on Wisse and anti-Semitism 23 Nov. 2010).

Summary

 “In the process of its history, ‘Jewish’ poetry, literature, philosophy, politics, and culture have and, to this day, are created in an effort to redefine and reexamine the meaning of Judaism and, quite simply, being Jewish” (Feuer - Course Syllabus). The bulk of the aforementioned  were created during or based upon the ‘wanderings’ and situational engagement of the Jews as a people (and not necessarily solely as a religion) when they were permitted and/or tolerated by the rulers/residents of one nation state or another for many, many hundreds of years. However, the Zionist Jews, who are “magnetized by the soil” of Israel (Ezrahi 235), in conjunction with their brothers and sisters of Jewish America are amazingly quite prolific as well.  Together they are producing works and ideas and engaging in politics that are redefining and reexamining what it means to be Jewish. A full examination of these aspects is beyond the scope of this essay and ‘survey’ course but, at the risk of leaving something important out of the mix, I am compelled to touch on a few of them such as Holocaust poetry (Celan), Schlemiel based movies (Sandler’s Zohan), books (Operation Shylock) and televisions shows (Seinfeld), all of which incorporate aspects of Jewish pop culture, bio and geo-politics, philosophy and ongoing political ‘discussions’ about the Israeli/Palestinian or Diaspora/Homecoming topics.

A quick surf of the internet and print sources shows that there are many varied Jewish foundations, charities, religious and secular organisations that work to maintain, grow and support all facets of Jewish life both in the Americas and in Israel (Ephron 197).  Indeed, to this gentile, the geographical and seemingly entrenched political divide between Israel and diasporic America with respect to all things Jewish, is somewhat similar to the dichotomous situation of the production of the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds. It is interesting to ponder if Jewish scholars were ‘in touch’ with each other in ancient times regarding their work on their respective Talmuds much as modern day Jews share and debate ideas and information between Israel and America.

Notwithstanding the love/hate tension between American Jewry, the Jews of Israel and the seeming improbability of crafting and implementing sustained peaceful relationships in the Middle East between Israel and her neighbours, there is so much more for both Jews and Gentiles to explore and discover about one and “The Other” (Ajzenstat 23).

And finally, with the famous IKEA TV commercial in mind, regarding whether or not Philip should take the attaché case full of money (Roth 398): “Start the car – Start the car!!!!!!” (IKEA).

Works Cited

Ajzenstat, Oona. Driven back to the text: The Premodern Sources of Levinas’s Postmodernism. Pittsburgh: Duquense UP, 2001.

Cahill, Thomas. The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels. Toronto: Random House of Canada, 1999.

Drucker,Malka. “Women and Judaism: A Reform Rabbi Speaks.” Judaism. Ed. Adriane Ruggiero. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven P, 2006. 171-177. Print.

Ephron, Dan. “Support for Israel.” Judaism. Ed. Adriane Ruggiero. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven P, 2006. 197-202. Print.

Ezrahi, Sidra DeKoven. Booking Passage: Exile and Homecoming in the Modern Jewish Imagination. Berkeley: University of California P, 2000.

Feuer, Menachem. RS #210- Introduction to Judaism - Course Syllabus. University of Waterloo, 2010. Print.

Feuer, Menachem. RS #210- Introduction to Judaism Lecture. The University of Waterloo. 14 Sept. 2010.

Feuer, Menachem. RS #210- Introduction to Judaism Lecture. The University of Waterloo. 19 Oct. 2010.

Feuer, Menachem. RS #210- Introduction to Judaism Lecture. The University of Waterloo. 23 Nov. 2010.

Good News Bible: Today’s English Version. Swindon, England: The Bible Societies, 1978.

IKEA : Winter Sale Commercial. Web. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C7oqXewyCE>.

Janowsky, Oscar I. “The Concept of a Homeland.” Judaism. Ed. Adriane Ruggiero. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven P, 2006. 47-56. Print.

Ludwig, Theodore M. The Sacred Paths of the West – 3^rd Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006.

Roth, Philip. Operation Shylock: a Confession. New York: Vintage, 1993. Print.

Scheindlin, Raymond P. A Short History of the Jewish People: From Legendary Times to Modern Statehood. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.

Wisse, Ruth. "Are American Jews Too Powerful? Not Even Close." The Washington Post 4 Nov. 2007. Print.