Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg...

Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia

The triumph of Zionism has clouded recollection of competing forms of Jewish nationalism vying for power a century ago. This study explores alternative ways to construct the modern Jewish nation. Jewish nation-alism emerges from this book as a Diaspora phenomenon much broader than the Zionist movement. Like its non-Jewish counterparts, Jewish nationalism was first and foremost a movement to nationalize Jews, to construct a modern Jewish nation while simultaneously mask-ing its very modernity. This book traces this process in Galicia, which was the second-largest Jewish community in Europe. The history of this vital but very much understudied community of Jews fills a crit-ical gap in existing scholarship while revisiting the broader question of how Jewish nationalism – or indeed any modern nationalism – was born. Based on a wide variety of sources, many newly uncovered, this study challenges the still-dominant Zionist narrative by demonstrating that Jewish nationalism was a part of the rising nationalist movements in Europe.

Joshua Shanes is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston. His past awards include the Jacob Javits Fellowship, the Fulbright Fellowship, and awards from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. He was also a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and a Fellow of the International Forum of Young Scholars on East European Jewry. He has published widely on Jewish cultural and political history in such journals as Jewish Social Studies, Nations and Nationalism, Polin, Austrian History Yearbook, and the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.

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Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia

JosHua sHaNes






cambridge university pressCambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA

www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107014244

© Joshua Shanes 2012

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2012

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication dataShanes, Joshua, 1971–

Diaspora nationalism and Jewish identity in Habsburg Galicia / JoshuaShanes. p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-1-107-01424-41. Jews – Galicia (Poland and Ukraine) – History – 18th century. 2. Jews – Galicia (Poland and Ukraine) – History – 19th century. 3. Jews – Galicia (Poland and Ukraine) – History – 20th century. 4. Zionism – Galicia (Poland and Ukraine) 5. Nationalism – Galicia (Poland and Ukraine) 6. Galicia (Poland and Ukraine) – Politics and government – 18th century. 7. Galicia (Poland and Ukraine) – Politics and government – 19th century. 8. Galicia (Poland and Ukraine) – Politics and government – 20th century. 9. Galicia (Poland and Ukraine) – Ethnic relations. I. Title.DS134.66.G35S53 2012305.892′40438609034–dc23 2011039451

ISBN 978-1-107-01424-4 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.






To my parents, with all of my love.






Come now, Joseph nudged himself, we are getting rather like the Irish – or the Welsh who deplore that all cities on the isles haven’t got names with fifteen consonants on a string. But then, nationalism is only comic in others – like being seasick or in love.

Arthur Koestler, Thieves in the Night (New York, 1946)






vii

List of Illustrations page ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1A Note on Translation 15

1 Galician Jewry under Habsburg Rule: The First Century, 1772–1883 16Galician Jews Confront Habsburg Germanization 16The Struggle for Emancipation 30Emancipation and Its Limitations: Polonization, National

Rights, and Jewish Exclusion 34Shomer Israel and the Emergence of “Jewish” Politics 41

2 Neither Germans nor Poles: Jewish Nationalism in Galicia before Herzl, 1883–1896 46Mikra Kodesh and Its Opponents 51The Nationalists’ First Campaign: J. S. Bloch versus Emil Byk 69Mikra Kodesh Becomes Zion 82Centralization 94Meeting the Socialist Challenge 102

3 Building a Nation of Readers: The Emergence of a Yiddish Populist Press 109The Turn to Yiddish 110Papers for the Jewish Folk: Nurturing an Orthodox

Reading Public 121From Readers to Voters: The Holy Campaign to Reelect

Joseph Bloch 140Conclusion 146

Contents






Contentsviii

4 A Broadening Audience: Organizational and Ideological Change, 1896–1904 149Herzl, the Zionist Congress, and Galician Reorganization 150Reaching Traditional Jews 164Refashioning Nationalist Literature 184Return to Diaspora Politics 192

5 Fort mit den Hausjuden! The 1907 Parliamentary Elections and the Rise of Jewish Mass Politics 197Introduction 197Universal Suffrage and Zionist Politics 200A Prelude to the Coming Battle 207The Jewish National Party of Austria 217The 1907 Campaign 223Zionist Opposition: Socialist, Independent, Orthodox, and

Assimilationist 243Poles, Ruthenians, and Jews 258The Results 265

Conclusion 278

Appendix A: Jewish Parliamentary Representatives from Galicia, 1873–1911 287

Appendix B: Party-Affiliated Jewish Candidates in Galician Districts in 1907 291

Bibliography 293

Index 317






ix

Maps

1. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867–1914 page xiii 2. Galicia xiv

Figures

2.1. Emil Byk and Joseph Bloch 73 2.2. Ehrenpreis, Braude, and Thon in 1887 85 3.1. Shevach Knöbel 123 3.2. Salomon Buber 142 5.1. Adolf Stand 209 5.2. Josef Gold 210 5.3. Heinrich Kolischer and Yehoshua Thon 230 5.4. Laibel Taubes 238 5.5. Nathan Birnbaum at a rally in Buczacz on May 25, 1907 241 5.6. Herman Diamand 244 5.7. Adolf Gross 248 5.8. Samuel Horowitz and Nathan Löwenstein 256 5.9. Front page of Józef Sare’s Jüdische Mittag-Zeitung on

May 15, 1907 259 5.10. Front page of Jüdische Zeitung on June 5, 1907 267

List of Illustrations






xi

Innumerable individuals and organizations have made this book possible. It is my great pleasure to thank them now.

Generous federal funding through the Jacob Javits, FLAS, and Fulbright fellowships made my initial research possible in Wisconsin and Vienna. The George L. Mosse Graduate Exchange Program at the University of Wisconsin provided funds for my subsequent research and writing in Israel. I would like particularly to thank John Tortorice for his support during that time. I also received generous support from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture; the National Foundation for Jewish Culture; the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; and the School of Languages, Cultures and World Affairs at the College of Charleston, my current home. I am grateful to all of them.

Many colleagues and mentors have read all or part of this manuscript and made countless suggestions to improve it. David Sorkin served as a model dissertation advisor, and now cherished colleague, whose quick and detailed editing was the envy of my peers. Alison Frank and Rudy Koshar, the other members of my dissertation committee, greatly improved the text that became the core of this book. I am especially grateful to Professor Frank for her continued interest in my progress and her suggestions for the manuscript as it evolved into its present version. I would also like to thank Maria Kovac, whose course on Diaspora nationalism during my first year of graduate school piqued my interest in this phenomenon generally and in East Central Europe in particular. Marsha Rozenblit and Hugo Lane both read the entire manuscript during one of its early manifestations, and it greatly benefited from their comments. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern

acknowledgments






Acknowledgmentsxii

has likewise read the entire manuscript, made numerous contributions to it, and has been a cherished mentor, colleague, and friend over the past decade. Harald Binder, with whom I enjoyed countless hours in the base-ment of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, served as an encyclopedic resource on all things Galician. In Jerusalem, I benefited from conversa-tions with Ezra Mendelsohn, the late Jonathan Frankel, Rachel Manekin, and Israel Bartal, whose own view of Jewish national construction paral-lels very much the argument presented here. Jeremy King offered theo-retical suggestions on my introduction and generously shared a draft of an unpublished article. David Birnbaum, Nathan Birnbaum’s grandson, shared a number of important artifacts from the Nathan and Solomon Birnbaum archives in Toronto, most importantly, the photograph that graces this book’s cover. I thank him for his generosity. Paul Magocsi generously gave permission to reprint his map of Galicia. Lew Bateman and the anonymous readers and editors at Cambridge University Press shepherded my rough manuscript into its current form, for which I am extremely grateful. Earlier versions of some of these pages appeared in Polin 16 (2003): 167–87; Austrian History Yearbook 34 (2003): 191–213; Studies in Jewish Civilization 16 (2005): 285–96; and Nationalism, Zionism, and Ethnic Mobilization of the Jews in 1900 and Beyond, edited by Michael Berkowitz (Leiden: Brill, 2004): 153–78. I thank those pub-lishers for their permission to include this material. Finally, my colleagues at the College of Charleston have provided a wonderful environment in which to teach and write. I particularly thank Adam Mendelsohn, who is always willing to lend a critical eye to any writing I share. Of course, any remaining faults are my responsibility alone.

A large portion of my life these last dozen years has been devoted to raising my three magnificent children: Brocha, Levi Yitzchak, and Rosa. Their humor, love, and accomplishments have been a tremendous source of blessing and joy for me. They are each blessed with unique talents and personalities, and I cherish every moment spent with them. I am so proud of all of you.

Finally, I dedicate this book to my parents. No words suffice to express the extent of my love and gratitude for all they have done for me. Certainly this book could never have been completed but for their sacrifice and support. They are model human beings who continuously demonstrate what it means to be givers and not takers, and model Jews whose joy in all things Jewish, and whose sacrifice to raise Jewish chil-dren and grandchildren, have taught me to take Jewishness seriously. You are my greatest role models. Thank you.






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