European Judaism

In November 2009 the Humboldt University, Potsdam, awarded an Honorary Doctorate to Rabbi Ernst Stein, marking his eightieth birthday. Born in Germany, a refugee in Shanghai during the war, living in Israel at the time of the War of Independence, later settling in America, Rabbi Stein encapsulates in his life much of the dramatic history of continental European Jewry during the twentieth century. But exceptionally, in his fifties, he decided to study for the rabbinate and was accepted at Leo Baeck College. He subsequently returned to Germany where he worked as a community rabbi for sixteen years, remaining active on a part-time basis after retirement. We include the welcome from the University President, Professor Markschies, who notes the uniqueness of this occasion in the history of the university, together with the Laudatio by your editor and Rabbi Stein’s response.

Regrettably there is no complete listing of the Honorary Doctorates given by this university during the past two hundred years. Because of this I can give no precise answer to the question, how many rabbis have been awarded an Honorary Doctorate in its two-hundred year history. During the 1990s at least the German-born Rabbi Gunther Plaut was considered for this distinction. It is safe to say, without needing any documentation, that I cannot imagine that during the Nazi period a rabbi would have received an Honorary Doctorate from this university, for why should the Berlin University distinguish a representative of a religion whose members over a long period of time could only be professors at the price of conversion, and must nevertheless have to listen to defamatory remarks; the name of the historian Treitschke represents many such.

At the outset of the Victorian Era the liturgy of the newly formed British Reform Judaism made its first appearance in Forms of Prayer. It was essentially a rather traditional, yet venturesome prayer book by the largely self-taught charismatic spiritual leader, David W. Marks, for a congregation made up of Anglicised Sephardic and Ashkenazic families, the West London Synagogue. Unique in prayer book reform, the new rite was marked by a deemphasis on the Rabbinic tradition and a move towards an enlightened biblicism. Thus it acquired a bit of a sectarian look. Over time this qualified scriptural reductionism gave way, in the 1920s and 30s, during the days of Rabbis Morris Joseph and Harold Reinhart, to an increased appreciation of Rabbinic law and teaching and, with the influx of Liberal rabbis from Continental Europe after the Second World War, to a recovery of a connectedness with all of world Jewry. A new generation of native-born rabbis (Lionel Blue and Jonathan Magonet) produced volumes of Forms of Prayer from 1977 onward for an entire movement that carried on the Marks legacy and the learned contributions of the postwar German rabbis, while simultaneously going in wholly fresh directions. Bringing the longest continuing Reform siddur into the twenty-first century have been the energetic joint efforts of clergy, scholars and laity under the multifaceted editorial guidance of Jonathan Magonet.

Both the American Mishkan Tefilah (2007) and the British Forms of Prayer (2008) contain striking renderings of the tenth, fourteenth and fifteenth blessings of the Amidah (traditionally the Blessings for the Ingathering of Exiles, the Rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Flourishing of the Messiah). A close comparison of these blessing in the two siddurim, exploring how each interacts with the classical liturgy, reveals fundamental similarities and subtle differences between the two prayerbooks. Forms of Prayer reshapes the meanings of the blessings by expanding upon and reworking the classical formulations, often keeping the opening and closing of the blessing intact; Mishkan Tefilah, in contrast, jettisons most of the traditional language in order to articulate requests, more fitting to its ideology. Both siddurim, despite their different liturgical strategies, are the Reform Movements' most Zionist to date. They are particularly focused on Israel, without negating the value of life in the Diaspora. They express a form of 'Liberal Religious Zionism' that calls for the moral growth rather than the physical repair of Israel. Both have taken a step back from their 1970s foregoers' embrace of the myth of Holocaust and Redemption; no longer completely confident of God's dominant hand in history, they express the need for human as well as divine agency in the betterment of the world. Both siddurim reflect values of individualism and spirituality; additional biblical allusions have been worked into the various blessings to expand their semantic possibilities, allowing any worshiper to configure them according to his or her own spiritual outlook.

Long overshadowed by the regnant Jewish memory of postwar Poland as a vast graveyard from which anyone who could would flee, the little-told story of the revival of Jewish life in the 'Recovered Territories' of western Poland reveals what its backers saw as an alternative to Israel in Palestine for Polish Jewish survivors. Abetted by both Zionist and American narratives, that dominant memory has suppressed a tale of courage and determination among the most downtrodden of people to recreate a Jewish life on Polish soil. It is a tale of people who believed that Jews not only had the right to claim citizenship in the new Poland but also could fulfill there their Jewish national aspirations. Led by the industrious Jacob Egit, the Jewish survivors in Lower Silesia in the earliest postwar years developed industries and cultural institutions that could have sustained a renewed Jewish community. That their efforts were cut short by the forces of antisemitism and Communism does not vitiate their remarkable though short-lived achievement.

There are two general approaches towards the memory of Jews in contemporary Poland: collective remembrance and collective forgetting. These are presented as two extreme attitudes which represent the process of dealing with the memory of Jews in Poland. However, this division does not take into account a phenomenon which combines the two approaches. A case study of a small town in southern Poland, where Jews constituted a significant part of the pre-war population, illustrates the complexity of resurrecting memories of Jews in Poland. Nowadays, not only are there no Jews living in the town but also there is no visible evidence of any memory of them. Nevertheless, there is a neglected memory of the town's Jews. It exists in the collective memory preserved in the stories recalled by some of the citizens. The memory of Jewish inhabitants of the town is not intentionally hidden or renounced. The stories of Jews once living in the town are generally known by the vast majority of inhabitants and are passed from generation to generation. However, this remembrance is not incorporated into the collective memory and mythical foundations of the community. The meaning and importance of remembering the town's Jews is neglected and treated as a virtual rather than a real history of the community.

There is a movement from the impersonal towards a more personal voice that is figured through the widow and so through some sense of the feminine. Is it through the feminine that we can know loss and so give voice to sorrow?

The life of Aimé Pallière (1868–1949), born and educated a Christian, had been marked by his encounter with Israel, a living Israel. It was an important Italian rabbi, Elia Benamozegh, who showed him the universal aspects of the Torah, that is, the part of the Torah destined for the Gentiles. Those teachings which form the noachide doctrine, had in the same rabbi its modern architect. Despite Aimé Pallière never declaring himself noachide in the sense that the Italian rabbi intended, he did not withdraw himself from the task of confronting such a proposal with his own high spiritual demands.

The arrival from Russia of the Borrensteins, the Myers and the Maccobys in England in the 1890s and their life in the East End of London. Anti-semitism at the turn of the century, the Aliens Act 1905, and the change of name from Borrenstein to Etherton. Chaim Zundel Maccoby, the Kammenitzer Maggid. Jewish identity, the Race Relations Act 1976, and the judgments of the Supreme Court in the JFS case. The author’s Jewish ethnic, cultural and historical links. The incorporeality of the Almighty. The maintenance of faith in the face of the advance of science and human knowledge. The author’s homosexuality and his Jewish faith. The idea of Britishness, commitment to the rule of law and parliamentary democracy. The relationship between religion and religious beliefs and the rule of law. The development in Britain of the right to individual liberty and personal dignity. The author’s sense of Britishness. His coat of arms and motto – hineini.

Brenner, Michael, A Short History of the Jews, translated by Jeremiah Riemer, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2010, xiv + 421 pp., ISBN 978-0-691-14351-4 (German original, Kleine Jüdische Geschichte, 2008).

Brenner, Michael, Prophets of the Past: Interpreters of Jewish History translated by Steven Rendall, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2010, xiii + 301 pp., ISBN 978-0-691-13928-9 (German original, Propheten des Vergangenen, 2006).

With great sorrow we record the death of Ludwik Finkelstein. Born in Poland, his family found asylum in the UK after the war. As Professor of Measurement and Instrumentation at City University, he had a distinguished career in the field of engineering.

Galas, Michał, Rabin Markus Jastrow i jego wizja reformy judaizmu. Studium z dziejów judaizmu w XIX wieku (Rabbi Marcus Jastrow and His Vision of the Reform of Judaism. A study in the History of Judaism in the Nineteenth Century), Kraków, Wydawnictwo Austeria, 2007, 335 pp., ISBN 978-838912-946-8.

Stanciu, Mãriuca, Necunoscutul Gaster. Publicistica culturalã, ideologicã şi politicã a lui Moses Gaster (The Unknown Gaster. Moses Gaster’s Cultural, Ideological and Political Publishing), Bucureşti, Editura Universitãţii din Bucureşti, 2006, 260 pp., index, ISBN (10) 973-737-207-7; (13) 978-973-737-207-9.

The Golem

To Greta Garbo, on her 100th Birthday (18 September 2005)

Landscape With Hunters In A Barn Ramygola Cemetery Over Lithuania-Poland