Thursday, December 11, 2008
Most Suprising
The most surprising thing I learned in class concerned American Jews and it was the Trial of Leo Frank which is why I am writing my final paper on him. I never heard of this happening before this class and I was shocked that it even happened. While researching for my paper I found a video on youtube that talked about Frank and how in Marietta, Georgia if you mention Leo Frank or Mary Phagan's name not many people will know who you are talking about. There is a small plaque on the side of an office building next to the freeway that is in memory of what occured but who is going to see it. This is not just something that should be looked over, it was a serious issue. During the trial a black man accussed Frank of murdering Mary Phagan and they took his word over a white Jew. In the south during this time they would never take a black man's word over a white mans. The way the whole case was handled was ridiculous. They went the complete opposite way then where the evidence pointed them and after Frank was ruled guilty at the trial his last chance was in Governor John M. Slaton's hands. Unfortunately, he chose the right decision and payed for it by being hung by an angry group of prostestors. After the lynching of Leo Frank, 33 members of the group called the Knights of Mary Phagan formed the new Ku Klux Klan of Georgia. It is unbelievable to consider how this murder turned into a sick and twisted piece of history and sadly 3 innocent people died.
My View on Jewish History and How it has Changed
At the beginning of this class I had an idea of what Jews had gone through to get to where they are today. Especially, with my family history my grandpa would tell my brother and I stories and my mom made sure I knew where my family came from. I definitely learned a lot from this class starting from the first day.
I've always known that Jews have suffered and been persecuted throughout the years but not to the extent that we discussed. I never knew that Jews converted to escape Poland and who knows how many of those Jews stayed Christian and lost there Jewish heritage. We have always been seen as the under dogs but it makes me proud to be a Jew because we have fought to be where we are today and have earned our place.
When the Jews came to America I thought they were welcomed with open arms and did not realize that immigration of Jews was almost completely shut down. The effects that could have had would have been huge considering that my grandpa is dutch and came from Holland after the war so that bill could have been passed and my grandma was American so they never would have met and I would not be here today.
I've always known that Jews have suffered and been persecuted throughout the years but not to the extent that we discussed. I never knew that Jews converted to escape Poland and who knows how many of those Jews stayed Christian and lost there Jewish heritage. We have always been seen as the under dogs but it makes me proud to be a Jew because we have fought to be where we are today and have earned our place.
When the Jews came to America I thought they were welcomed with open arms and did not realize that immigration of Jews was almost completely shut down. The effects that could have had would have been huge considering that my grandpa is dutch and came from Holland after the war so that bill could have been passed and my grandma was American so they never would have met and I would not be here today.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Aftermath
The Germans had recently deported the Jews of Salonica, and they had no idea of who was still living in the ghetto, which was swarmed with squatters and refugees. Hammond's testimony is a reminder that although the Jews were gone, their presence lived on in the tangible shape of empty homes, communal buildings, shops, factories, and entire quarters. In a matter of weeks nearly one-fifth of the population of a large city had been deported, leaving their property and possesions behind them.
The Germans themselves looted the villas of the elite and Jewish-owned warehouses; van took away pianos, wardrobes, furniture, carpets, electric lights, and clothing of all kinds. It was in the words of one journalist, a "general and shameless pillaging". Experience in Germany and Austria had tought the SS the importance of organizing the takeover of Jewish property properly. "Wild" looting was inefficient and dangerous and usually led to a free-for-all.
The Germans finally pulled out at the end of October 1944, and hundreds of Jews had survived and slowly headed back to Salonica. The survivors found Salonica transformed and unrecognizable. Jewish tombstones were found in urinals and driveways, and had been used to make up the dance floor of a taverna built over a corner of the former cemtery itself. The UN Relief & Rehabilitation Agency was active in the city helping Jews and Christians alike and one of its officials, Bella Mazur, who had been seconded from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee spent her spare time "trying to help organize the community so it can have an official set-up. Jewish survivors were dependent on the UNRRA for food and clothing.
The Germans themselves looted the villas of the elite and Jewish-owned warehouses; van took away pianos, wardrobes, furniture, carpets, electric lights, and clothing of all kinds. It was in the words of one journalist, a "general and shameless pillaging". Experience in Germany and Austria had tought the SS the importance of organizing the takeover of Jewish property properly. "Wild" looting was inefficient and dangerous and usually led to a free-for-all.
The Germans finally pulled out at the end of October 1944, and hundreds of Jews had survived and slowly headed back to Salonica. The survivors found Salonica transformed and unrecognizable. Jewish tombstones were found in urinals and driveways, and had been used to make up the dance floor of a taverna built over a corner of the former cemtery itself. The UN Relief & Rehabilitation Agency was active in the city helping Jews and Christians alike and one of its officials, Bella Mazur, who had been seconded from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee spent her spare time "trying to help organize the community so it can have an official set-up. Jewish survivors were dependent on the UNRRA for food and clothing.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Diabolization of The Jews
The Jew as International Conspirator
The idea of Racism was often combined with the belief that Jews were conspiring to take over Germany and the world. The myth of a Jewish conspiracy began with the forgery of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. The Protocols was written in France in the 1890's by an unknown author in the service of the Russian secret police. The forger describes an alleged meeting of the Jewish elders in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Prague where they plan to take over the world and to reduce non-Jews to slavery. To implement this plan it would require them to undermine religion, assassinate monarchs, and weaken aristocracy and hatch revolutions. This included the French revolution which would spread the idea of liberty and equality. The Jews would also manipulate the stock exchange and cause economic crisis. Published in 1903 in Russia, the Protocols were widely distributed after World War I and was commonly believed.
Communism As A Jewish Conspiracy
In Russia under the communist government led by Vladimir Lenin, Jews were seen as excessively represented. In the 1870's the Jews increasingly discriminated against, barred progressively from universities, liberal professions, professoriate, the civil service and military careers except conscripts. In 1881 an official policy of anti-semitism came about and the black hundreds (dressed in black uniforms and dedicated to ravaging Jewish districts) of the Union of Russian People were organized in 1905. The Jews were still tortured even during the civil war, where no less than 100,000 Jews were killed. On the other hand, the Soviets defended the Jews with force, punished militia units that engaged in pogroms and outlawed anti-semitism as criminal.
The Protocols in Germany and in the United States
After the defeat of the Bolsheviks in the civil war and the soviet regime was secured it provided many opportunities for the Jews. They were able to start working again at universities and other higher positions. This was until Joseph Stalin came into power and anti-semitism and murderous purges where the norm until he died in 1953.
In 1921, the Protocols were proven to be a forgery by Philip Graves, an English journalist but it continued to be distrbuted. The Protocols was challenged in the court of law as being fraudulent. In 1934, several people with connections to the Nazis were tied to the editing, publication and distribution of the Protocols were put on trial. The judge denounced the Protocols as "ridiculous nonsense". The topic of and international Jewish conspiracy remained a core idea of Nazi propaganda until the war ended. In the United States the Protocols were also widely accepted. In 1920, Henry Ford published the International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, a reprint of the Protocols that he had in his newspaper Dearborn Independent. In this printing the Jews were blamed for World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. Eventually, Ford was confronted with a lawsuit and was forced to stop publication in 1927 and apologized for his "error" to the Jewish American community even though he later blamed Jewish bankers for starting World War II.
This is what my part of our presentation covered. I thought all of this was very interesting how anti-semitism spread around the world. I never knew that there was a publishing behind the idea that Jews were trying to take over the world and you can't trust them one bit.
The idea of Racism was often combined with the belief that Jews were conspiring to take over Germany and the world. The myth of a Jewish conspiracy began with the forgery of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. The Protocols was written in France in the 1890's by an unknown author in the service of the Russian secret police. The forger describes an alleged meeting of the Jewish elders in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Prague where they plan to take over the world and to reduce non-Jews to slavery. To implement this plan it would require them to undermine religion, assassinate monarchs, and weaken aristocracy and hatch revolutions. This included the French revolution which would spread the idea of liberty and equality. The Jews would also manipulate the stock exchange and cause economic crisis. Published in 1903 in Russia, the Protocols were widely distributed after World War I and was commonly believed.
Communism As A Jewish Conspiracy
In Russia under the communist government led by Vladimir Lenin, Jews were seen as excessively represented. In the 1870's the Jews increasingly discriminated against, barred progressively from universities, liberal professions, professoriate, the civil service and military careers except conscripts. In 1881 an official policy of anti-semitism came about and the black hundreds (dressed in black uniforms and dedicated to ravaging Jewish districts) of the Union of Russian People were organized in 1905. The Jews were still tortured even during the civil war, where no less than 100,000 Jews were killed. On the other hand, the Soviets defended the Jews with force, punished militia units that engaged in pogroms and outlawed anti-semitism as criminal.
The Protocols in Germany and in the United States
After the defeat of the Bolsheviks in the civil war and the soviet regime was secured it provided many opportunities for the Jews. They were able to start working again at universities and other higher positions. This was until Joseph Stalin came into power and anti-semitism and murderous purges where the norm until he died in 1953.
In 1921, the Protocols were proven to be a forgery by Philip Graves, an English journalist but it continued to be distrbuted. The Protocols was challenged in the court of law as being fraudulent. In 1934, several people with connections to the Nazis were tied to the editing, publication and distribution of the Protocols were put on trial. The judge denounced the Protocols as "ridiculous nonsense". The topic of and international Jewish conspiracy remained a core idea of Nazi propaganda until the war ended. In the United States the Protocols were also widely accepted. In 1920, Henry Ford published the International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, a reprint of the Protocols that he had in his newspaper Dearborn Independent. In this printing the Jews were blamed for World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. Eventually, Ford was confronted with a lawsuit and was forced to stop publication in 1927 and apologized for his "error" to the Jewish American community even though he later blamed Jewish bankers for starting World War II.
This is what my part of our presentation covered. I thought all of this was very interesting how anti-semitism spread around the world. I never knew that there was a publishing behind the idea that Jews were trying to take over the world and you can't trust them one bit.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Greeks and Jews
What is the fate of the Jews in Salonica during and after the First World War?
The Jews of Salonica went to a few different places a minority went to Palestine, some did emigrate to France and the United States. The vast majority, their home was the city, and if asked they would have naturally described their nationality - as one emigrant did to the French authorities in 1916 - as "Salonicans".
From the Greek point of view, the key to turning Jews into full citizens of their new country was language. Before 1912, a few Jews in Salonica had bothered to learn Greek. From 1915, however, all Jewish community schools in receipt of public funds were obliged to teach it. Jewish children were not forced to attend what greek civil servants called "our schools" whose instruction was described as "rather classical" and "incompatible with Jewish customs and nature" and instead Athens invested in the Jewish schools themselves, providing language teachers, and later actual buildings. In this way, the younger generation learned Greek quickly and by the Second World War, many Jewish children were fluent, having taken part in school productions of such Greek classics as "Golfo and Shepherdess", or the stirring story of Leonidas and the 300.
The language question reflected the spectrum of attitudes to assimilation more generally among the city's Jews. French remained the language of the cultured eite, especially among those of the wealthy enough to send their children to foreign schools. Local communities stood up to the continued use of Judeo-Spanish, the vernacular of the workers. But a middle-class minority stressed the need for fluency in Greek in order to "give Greece good Greek citizens who will, at the same time, be no less good Jews."
"If I speak about assimilation", wrote one, "I do so not out of Greek patriotism but for the sake of Jewish interests. I believe that in order for the Jews to be able to live here, they need to assimilate to the environment in which they live. The fewer barriers there are between Greeks and Jews, the easier it will be for us to live here. Our purpose is not to be obstentatiously patriotic, but to safeguard the existence of the Jewish population. If assimilation is not the correct means of doing this, let us suggest another way."
This view was opposed mainly by the zionists. They accused the alliance of betraying Judaism and demanded a prominent place in the school curriculum for Hebrew. Jews began to emigrate from 1910 onwards, they went mostly to France and Italy, or across the Atlantic. The figures are uncertain, but by 1930 htousands of Salonican Jews had settled in Paris, and there were smaller communities everywhere from New York to Naples.
The Jews of Salonica went to a few different places a minority went to Palestine, some did emigrate to France and the United States. The vast majority, their home was the city, and if asked they would have naturally described their nationality - as one emigrant did to the French authorities in 1916 - as "Salonicans".
From the Greek point of view, the key to turning Jews into full citizens of their new country was language. Before 1912, a few Jews in Salonica had bothered to learn Greek. From 1915, however, all Jewish community schools in receipt of public funds were obliged to teach it. Jewish children were not forced to attend what greek civil servants called "our schools" whose instruction was described as "rather classical" and "incompatible with Jewish customs and nature" and instead Athens invested in the Jewish schools themselves, providing language teachers, and later actual buildings. In this way, the younger generation learned Greek quickly and by the Second World War, many Jewish children were fluent, having taken part in school productions of such Greek classics as "Golfo and Shepherdess", or the stirring story of Leonidas and the 300.
The language question reflected the spectrum of attitudes to assimilation more generally among the city's Jews. French remained the language of the cultured eite, especially among those of the wealthy enough to send their children to foreign schools. Local communities stood up to the continued use of Judeo-Spanish, the vernacular of the workers. But a middle-class minority stressed the need for fluency in Greek in order to "give Greece good Greek citizens who will, at the same time, be no less good Jews."
"If I speak about assimilation", wrote one, "I do so not out of Greek patriotism but for the sake of Jewish interests. I believe that in order for the Jews to be able to live here, they need to assimilate to the environment in which they live. The fewer barriers there are between Greeks and Jews, the easier it will be for us to live here. Our purpose is not to be obstentatiously patriotic, but to safeguard the existence of the Jewish population. If assimilation is not the correct means of doing this, let us suggest another way."
This view was opposed mainly by the zionists. They accused the alliance of betraying Judaism and demanded a prominent place in the school curriculum for Hebrew. Jews began to emigrate from 1910 onwards, they went mostly to France and Italy, or across the Atlantic. The figures are uncertain, but by 1930 htousands of Salonican Jews had settled in Paris, and there were smaller communities everywhere from New York to Naples.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Sachar "The Legacy of Progressivism: Immigrant Jewry in the United States
Eastern Jews became politically active by supporting the American Socialist's party who's leader was Eugene Debs. Debs accepted Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Serbs, Finns, Jews and others. They would register autonomously in their own foreign language. Jews were working mostly in the garment industry in sweatshops and we very unhappy. The Jews tried to unionize but were unsuccessful, until Morris Hillquit led an effort to establish an umbrella organization for the Jews which was called United Hebrew Trades which still had its struggles. A series of "intramural" developments that gave Jewish inionism a new vitality. One was the early ywentieth-century wave of Bundists. Another factor was the growth of the garment factory to help Jews really establish themselves and create a more solid economy for them to grow on. In 1900 they established a group called the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).
For Jews to "Americanize" there were a few parts. First was the language most of the Jews who came from Eastern Europe no matter what language they did speak were now speaking Yiddish. The Jews even had a News Papaer that was published in Yiddish in New york. The biggest turn for the Jews was the Russian revolution of March 1917. The fall of the tsar meant freedom for all of the Jews. One of the revolutions most decisive consequences was the fact that the US was entering the war. Hundereds of the Jews were caught up in the mood of the was and intesified American Patriotism.
After the war restrictions on immigration and immigrants completely changed. Restrictions were affecting higher education and Jews were being not being admitted into the Ivy League schools as often as they were pre-war. In the business world they were limiting their hiring and directed advertising toward Christians. Athough Jews were losing their economic status they had already left there mark which we could see in the garment industry. Jews were gaining ground in the area of real estate and also cosmetics. In 1929, the onset of the Great Deprssion took some blows on American Jews. Jews who had just graduated from higher education were screwed since they had just enetered the white-collar ranks and were so low on the totem pole that they lost their chance for economic security.
For Jews to "Americanize" there were a few parts. First was the language most of the Jews who came from Eastern Europe no matter what language they did speak were now speaking Yiddish. The Jews even had a News Papaer that was published in Yiddish in New york. The biggest turn for the Jews was the Russian revolution of March 1917. The fall of the tsar meant freedom for all of the Jews. One of the revolutions most decisive consequences was the fact that the US was entering the war. Hundereds of the Jews were caught up in the mood of the was and intesified American Patriotism.
After the war restrictions on immigration and immigrants completely changed. Restrictions were affecting higher education and Jews were being not being admitted into the Ivy League schools as often as they were pre-war. In the business world they were limiting their hiring and directed advertising toward Christians. Athough Jews were losing their economic status they had already left there mark which we could see in the garment industry. Jews were gaining ground in the area of real estate and also cosmetics. In 1929, the onset of the Great Deprssion took some blows on American Jews. Jews who had just graduated from higher education were screwed since they had just enetered the white-collar ranks and were so low on the totem pole that they lost their chance for economic security.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Speaker
Tonight for class we heard from Dr. Peter Fritzsche who's a professor at a school in Illinois and he talked about the Holocaust and the role of the German people and how they were treated/acted during the Nazi rule. It was a very interesting to see his thoughts and perceptions of how the Germans thought they were victims too.
He discussed how the German people felt as though they were suffering during this time as well. Germans were devoted to do whatever they needed for their country and this is why they were able to still kill innocent women and children because it acted as justification for their own situation. this entire situation can be compared to our current situation in the United states with the War in Iraq. The United states was not only split when it came to election time but our decision to elect George W. Bush led to this country still being split on his decision of sending troops to Iraq but now that we have soldiers over there our country needs to be supportive and realize that those are innocent people who are risking their own lives for OUR country. What is the difference between what occurred in Germany in the 1930's and todays world. Is this war really necessary? What are we going to achieve out of it? How many people are going to die before it is over? These are all questions that could have been asked before the Holocaust happened. What is the difference when any war happens two countries are going into battle and only one is going to come out on top.
He discussed how the German people felt as though they were suffering during this time as well. Germans were devoted to do whatever they needed for their country and this is why they were able to still kill innocent women and children because it acted as justification for their own situation. this entire situation can be compared to our current situation in the United states with the War in Iraq. The United states was not only split when it came to election time but our decision to elect George W. Bush led to this country still being split on his decision of sending troops to Iraq but now that we have soldiers over there our country needs to be supportive and realize that those are innocent people who are risking their own lives for OUR country. What is the difference between what occurred in Germany in the 1930's and todays world. Is this war really necessary? What are we going to achieve out of it? How many people are going to die before it is over? These are all questions that could have been asked before the Holocaust happened. What is the difference when any war happens two countries are going into battle and only one is going to come out on top.
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