Category: Focus

Focus

Solidarity Among Colonial Subjects in Wartime Libya, 1940-1943

ABSTRACT
During World War II, Jews in Libya faced persecution and adversity. In response, Muslim individuals often became aides to the Jews, driven by economic reward, shared benefits, and genuine empathy. Examining the manner Jews and Muslims interacted in these circumstances sheds light on the complex relationship between the two communities, influenced by factors such as religious affiliation, connections to the regime, and personal interests. The fascist regime’s differential policies towards the two communities over two decades also played a role in shaping this relationship, sometimes causing conflict between the communities, but also leading to a shared sense of opposition to the Italians following common experiences of persecution.

issue 22 / n.2 (2022) by Livia Tagliacozzo

Imagined Homelands. Baghdadi Jews in South, East and Southeast Asia, and Europe (1850-1950)

ABSTRACT
Adopting a transnational perspective, this article investigates the history, mobility and identity of Baghdadi Jews in South, East and Southeast Asia and in Europe between 1850 and 1950. Unlike previous works on the subject, which have focused mainly on the magnates among the Baghdadis of the Asian hubs, this article also includes many references to the middle classes. The first part of the article examines how Baghdadis in the Asian hubs transformed their collective identity by dwelling in and across India, Singapore, Burma (Myanmar) and China and what role did mobility play in this process. Individuals travelled for reasons and work or leisure, they exchanged money and commodities, used different languages (among them Judeo-Arabic and English), and objects circulated too; among them liturgical and religious objects, as well as the Jewish press. The second part analyzes what was the significance of Europe for this group. London represented a point of arrival for many of the most successful traders among them, especially the tycoons. However, in the first half of the twentieth century other capitals (Paris, Madrid, and even New York) acquired a growing relevance in connection to the contemporary contraction of the Sephardic space and expansion of the Ashkenazi one. Sources for this work come from oral history repositories at the National Archives of Singapore, the Hong Kong Oral History Project, the memorial website Jewish Calcutta and from the contemporary Jewish press, and in particular the Shanghai based monthly publication Israel’s Messenger.

issue 22 / n.2 (2022) by Marcella Simoni

Experiencing and Remembering the Hachscharah. Documents and Stories from and about the Hehalutz in Sweden

ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1933, the halutz-quota was established in Sweden. This quota gave young German Jews the possibility to come to Sweden as transmigrants to receive training in agricultural work for 18 months and then continue to Palestine. In total, between the years 1933-1941 490 teenagers were sent to Sweden through the halutz-quota. The focus of this article is on how and what the young people communicate about their time in Sweden in different sources. Drawing from various unpublished materials produced within the movement in Sweden as well as interviews with former members of the He-Halutz, the aim is to place the persons who entered Sweden through the halutz-quota as central actors in the text, both as important agents in the past and as constructors of the stories of that past.

issue 21 / n.1 (2022) by Malin Thor Tureby

Hachsharah Training Centers in Czechoslovakia and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

ABSTRACT
Immediately after the foundation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, activities, focus groups, bureaucratic structure, and organization of hachsharah training centers had to change considerably. Chances to emigrate became more and more limited. Since the completion of the hachsharah training became a prerequisite for obtaining the emigration certificate, the reorganization of hachsharah training centers became a crucial task for Zionists. Various agricultural training centers, vocational training, and requalification courses were established and organized with unprecedented intensity. For these activities, He-Halutz department of the Palestinian Office was responsible, and organized these places mostly on farms and manors of Czech farmers; this became a part of the economic exploitation of the Jews. The paper will analyze changes in age groups, social status of emigration candidates and trainees, reorganization of training camps from the perspective of the Zionist movement as well as temporal changes of Jewish geography in the former territory of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

issue 21 / n.1 (2022) by Daniela Bartakova

Hachsharot in Greece, 1945 – 1949: Camps or vocational centers?

ABSTRACT
Drawing on rich and eloquent sources, both institutional and personal, this article outlines how internal documents of the American Joint Distribution Committee, press reports, and personal testimonies present vocational training in the hachsharot for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Greece. How do these sources communicate with each other, and what problems are they silent about? Through their close examination, I seek to paint a more accurate picture beyond the Zionist idea of aliyah and to interconnect Holocaust survivors’ attempts to move from Greece to Palestine with the Greek Civil War, the Cold War, and the situation in the Middle East. To this end, I analyze the attitudes of local and transnational actors as well as personal recollections of the multifold postwar experience of these vocational training centers in Greece.

issue 21 / n.1 (2022) by Kateřina Králová

Theater in Jewish DPs Camps in Italy: A Stage for Political and Ideological Debate on Aliyah, Zionism and Jewish identity

ABSTRACT
This article focuses on theater as a form of cultural, political and ideological training for aliyah aimed at Jewish displaced persons (DPs) in postwar Italy. Exploring the private archives of the Zionist emissary Zvi Aldouby, we intend to move beyond the traditional idea of hachsharah as a preparation for aliyah based primarily on physical and agricultural training. This analysis relates on a set of diverse sources, ranging from institutional reports, official and informal correspondence, personal notes, sketches, photographs and drawings. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the article is divided in two parts. The first one frames Aldouby’s mission in relation to the rehabilitative programs and the political landscape within the refugee camps. The second part explores the birth of a dramatic circle founded by Aldouby and analyzes two theatrical plays directed by him, The Golem (Ha-Golem) by H. Leivick and This Land (Ha-Adamah Ha-Zot) by A. Ashman. Through the analysis of Aldouby mission, the article emphasizes the role of culture among Jewish DPs as well as the political motivations behind it. In this scenario, characterized by the Jewish DPs’ efforts to start a new life and the Zionist emissaries’ endeavor to organize their aliyah, theater became the stage to promote and discuss new understandings of home and identity.

issue 21 / n.1 (2022) by Chiara Renzo, Achinoam Aldouby and Michal Peles-Almagor

“As to my emotional anguish, there are days when I feel endlessly miserable”: Hachsharot in Early Post war Romania and the Limits of Belonging

ABSTRACT
This paper looks at the hachsharah activities of Zionist organizations in early post-war Romania, examining the context and motivation of participants. Whereas the hachsharot in central Europe have been recognized as spaces of empowerment and agency for displaced persons, the contrasting Romanian war-time experience and divergent social structures called these very features into question in the Romanian context. Following a macrohistorical basic outline, a microhistorical approach is taken to probe the experience of one individual through a set of recently found diaries. Here the limits of Zionist propaganda and community-building work and the ramifications of failing to address the psychological and physical needs of Holocaust survivors are explored: despite apparent inclusion in a cohesive and sympathetic group, the diary author experiences alienation and marginalization within her own ranks.

issue 21 / n.1 (2022) by Julie Dawson

Hachsharot in Hungary After the Holocaust: Lives and Stories Behind Facts

ABSTRACT
The primary aim of our study is to explore the post-Holocaust history of the hachsharot in Hungary through the eyes of their members. Our study is based on a structured analysis of one hundred and one interviews from the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive. The immediate post-war years saw an unprecedented growth of the Zionist movement in Hungary. During this short period, the hachsharot played a vital role in the lives of those who, unlike most Jews, chose dissimilation. In our study, we explore the interviewees’ family backgrounds and their prewar connection to Zionism. We explore in detail their time in the Zionist movement and the hachsharot. However, we do not focus only on the facts, but put special emphasis on personal experiences and feelings. Finally, we also address how the identities of our interviewees changed and how these experiences shaped their first decades after their lives in the hachsharot.

issue 21 / n.1 (2022) by Ildikó Barna and Kinga Szemere

Unexpected Allies: Imperial Russian Support of Jewish Emigration at the Time of Its Legal Ban, 1881-1914

ABSTRACT
This article analyses the Russian government’s involvement in Jewish emigration from the late Tsarist Empire by exploring bureaucratic archival records. Despite the official emigration ban, between 1881 and 1914 about two million Jews managed to cross the Russian border and leave primarily for the United States, Argentina, and Palestine. The understudied yet official documents and police reports from imperial provinces such as Podolia, Volhynia, and New Russia reveal the practical aspects of the Jewish exodus. Some Jewish emigrants left illegally on their own, some used the help of illegal emigration agents, while others were able to leave with the assistance of charitable emigration organizations. In most of these scenarios, this article argues, the Russian government supported Jewish emigration in implicit or explicit ways: it was willing to tolerate Jewish resettlement to the extent that it could regulate the process.

issue 20 / December 2021 by Anastasiia Strakhova

Jews, Russians, Karaites: The Development of Karaite Nationalism in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the Twentieth Century

ABSTRACT
The article examines the rise and consolidation of Karaism in Tsarist Russia from the first half of the nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. The creation of a specific national culture was on the one hand a consequence of the hostile policy the authorities applied towards Jews, which eventually favored Karaite’s departure from the originary community. On the other hand, and despite the late spread of Haskalah within Karaites as compared to the larger Rabbanite surroundings, the article claims that the former ones did share Maskilic ideals, partly because Karaites already displayed in the majority of cases distinctive signs of acculturation and secularization—all predisposing elements for the formation of a new feeling of national belonging.

issue 20 / December 2021 by Dovilė Troskovaitė