Jews and Race

Writings on Identity and Difference, 1880–1940

Mitchell B. Hart

• Publisher: Brandeis University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781584657170
  9781584657163
• eBook ISBN:
  9781611680300
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

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.

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to tables.

Aaron (England, thirteenth century), 123

Abraham, 31, 31n43, 167–68n10, 205–6

Abyssinian Jews, 51, 66, 235

Achaeans, 215

Adler, Cyrus, 229–31, 235

Adler, Hermann, 6

Afghans, 10

African Americans, xxxviii (n. 20), 140. See also Negro race

Akkado-Sumerians, 212

alcoholism, xxv, 103, 110, 112–13, 116, 140, 244–45

Alexander the Great, 195, 199, 215

Algeria, 64, 65, 98, 101, 101

Allen, Grant, 188, 188n16

Alpine race, 25, 39, 40, 80, 212–14

Alsberg, Moritz, 68, 70, 78, 163, 164, 166–68, 167–68n10

Amalakites, 167

Amenophis III, 211–12

Ammonites, 167

Amorites: overview, 29–32; Aryan Amorites hypothesis, 88–89, 168; Canaanites relationship with, 26, 30–31n42; Jewish descendency from, 78, 246; Jewish intermarriage with, 175–76; physical description of, 88, 198; racial status of, 215; settlement of, 175–76, 212–13

Andree, Richard, 78

anthropology: overview, 41, 53; anthropological perspective on race, 159–60, 192–93, 196; Biblical evidence and, 41, 53–54, 165–68, 204–5; medical pathology as emergent from, 121; special role of Jews in, 43–44. See also anthropometry; sociology

anthropometry: overview, 5–6, 54–55; brain measurement overview, 71–79; description of southern Russian Jews, 76–77; New York City study, 22; physical traits of ancient Jews, 33–36, 33–35; reliability of, 28; short-headedness issue, 78–79, 168. See also anthropology

antisemitism: Aramaic physiognomy as basis for, 34–35; Aryans role in, xxxii; cultural response to, 189, 220–22, 256–58; emancipation and, 240; environmental argument and, xxvi–xxvii; Germanic/Teutonic race theory and, 254–56; German intermarriage and, 19; immigration policy and, 225–26, 240n41; “Jewish Question” and, 219; political climate for, 23; racial Jewishness as basis for, xxx, xxxiii–xxxiv, 226, 233–35; racial spirit theory and, 189, 193–94; racial theory as counter t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Jews and Race: An Introductory Essay, Mitchell B. Hart
• I | General Overviews
• II | Anthropology
• III | Medicine and Biology
• IV | Society and Economy
• V | “Racial Mixing”: Intermarriage and Conversion
• VI | Politics, Polemics, and Apologetics
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Index