Jews & Race

by Hart, Mitchell B.

• ISBN13: 9781584657170
• ISBN10: 1584657170
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-13
• Publisher: Brandeis Univ

Summary

Many people think of Jews as victims of a particular sort of racism, not as active participants in the development of racial thinking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yet many Jews did take up racial discourse and used it to analyze Judaism, Jewish history, and the contemporary condition of world Jewry. Race discourse generated by Jews was in part apologetic, a response to racial antisemitism; however, it also served other political and ideological needs. Focusing primarily on works written at the height of the racial hygiene and eugenics movements in Europe and North America, this diverse anthology shows how Jewish scholars and popular writers in Europe, North America, and Palestine developed racial interpretations of Judaism and Jewish history, thereby raising fascinating and thorny issues about the nature and history of racial discourse in Europe and America. Designed for class adoption, the volume contains annotations and an introduction by the editor.

Author Biography

Mitchell B. Hart is a professor in the history department and Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. He is the author of the Healthy Jews: The Symbiosis of Judaism and Modern Medicine and Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Jews and Race: An Introductory Essay	p. xiii
General Overviews	p. 1
"Racial Characteristics of Modern Jews,"	p. 3
"Reflections on the Jews,"	p. 12
Preface from Jews, Race, and Environment	p. 21
"Jewish Race,"	p. 24
"On the Origins and Race of the Jews,"	p. 30
Anthropology	p. 41
"Introduction to the Anthropological Study of the Jews,"	p. 43
Entry on Anthropology from The Jewish Encyclopedia	p. 53
"The Jews as a Race	p. 60
"The Brain Weight of Jews,"	p. 71
"The Jewish Racial Problem,"	p. 76
"Anthropological Research on the Russian-Polish Jews, and the Value of This Research for the Anthropology of the Jews in General,"	p. 81
"Are the Jews a Race?"	p. 87
Medicine and Biology	p. 95
"The Comparative Pathology of the Jews,"	p. 97
"Contributions to the Jewish Racial Question,"	p. 115
"Heredity and the Jew,"	p. 122
"The 'Nervousness' of the Jew,"	p. 130
"The Problem of Tuberculosis among the Jews: A Racial and Socio-Pathological Study,"	p. 137
Society and Economy	p. 143
"Is the Criminality of the Jews Racial Criminality?"	p. 145
"Jews, Race, and Environment,"	p. 150
"Successes of the Jews in Capitalistic Enterprise,"	p. 153
"Racial Mixing": Intermarriage and Conversion	p. 157
"The Jewish Racial Question,"	p. 159
"The Mixed Marriage,"	p. 170
"Fertility in Mixed Marriages"	p. 174
"The Significance of the Mixed Marriage,"	p. 175
"Intermarriage between Jews and Christians,"	p. 185
Politics, Polemics, and Apologetics	p. 189
"The So-Called Jewish Race,"	p. 191
"The Chosenness of the Jews in the Light of Biology,"	p. 203
"To Which Race Did Jesus Belong?"	p. 210
Foreword and Introduction from the Racial Problem, with Particular Attention Paid to the Theoretical Foundations of the Jewish Racial Question	p. 218
"There is No Jewish Race!" The Testimony of the American Jewish Committee and Union of American Hebrew Congregations before the United States Immigration Committee	p. 225
"Assimilation versus Zionism,"	p. 238
"The Racial Identity of the Jews," unsigned editorial from	p. 243
"On the Jewish Racial Question," unsigned editorial from	p. 246
"Concerning Racial Theory,"	p. 250
"The Jewish Racial Problem,"	p. 254
"Jews and Jewishness,"	p. 259
Suggestions for Further Reading	p. 267
Index	p. 269
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